Haruhi's Boyfriend
by Martin III
Summary: Haruhi gets a boyfriend, and Kyon is more than a little upset when she tells him who it is. His efforts to get them to break up are complicated by his (mandatory) membership in Haruhi's new rock band, which is already facing troubles. Updates Fridays. Rated T for sexual references and moderate obscenities.
1. Chapter 1

Author's notes: Here's the first of what I anticipate will be several Haruhi Suzumiya fics by me (I already have ideas for three more). I'm trying my best to emulate the approach of the source material by explaining the reasons behind the characters' actions as little as possible, leaving them for the reader to figure out.

While I fully intend to read the Haruhi Suzumiya light novels, for the moment I'm only familiar with the television series, so consider this fic restricted to that continuity. Also, I'm not as well-versed in Japanese culture as I probably should be to be attempting a story like this, though I've done research where it was obviously necessary. So please, if you spot any cultural inaccuracies, point them out so I can fix them.

I keep a firm practice of refraining from chapter-by-chapter author's notes, but if you want behind-the-scenes info on the writing of this fic, check out my profile page. I plan to post a new tidbit as each chapter goes up.

The characters and milieu of this fan fiction work are property of Nagaru Tanigawa, Kyoto Animation, and Funimation. This is apart from the handful of newly introduced characters, most significantly Takuma.

And now, an end to my blathering and a start to the fun stuff. (Well, I think it's fun stuff. Hopefully you'll agree.)

* * *

 **Haruhi's Boyfriend**

plot and script - Martin III

cover art - Cesar Hernandez

* * *

 **Chapter 1** : _In which Haruhi has a band rehearsal, goes in search of aliens, and acquires a boyfriend, and Kyon discovers he has strong reasons to be unhappy about all three of these things_

Looking back over this past month, I think I can spot more times where the words "I should have..." can be applied than in any other month of my life.

Certainly, being associated with Haruhi Suzumiya is bound to leave you with a lion's share of regrettable events when your life is finally tallied up. Usually, however, I can lay the blame for these solely at Haruhi's door, and feel about as responsible for my own misfortunes as if my home were swallowed up by an earthquake, since Haruhi is just as destructive and unreasoning as that force of nature.

This past month, though, I made an easy target of myself in retrospect.

It started with my usual morning discourse with Haruhi. As I pulled up my chair to sit down, she paid me no attention, just continued to stare thoughtfully at the ceiling.

"Yo," I said to her. "Any plans for this weekend?"

It's tempting to comment that this is a dangerous question to ask Haruhi Suzumiya, but really, is there _any_ question that isn't dangerous to ask Haruhi?

"Not yet," she answered, absently.

Silence followed, and I started to debate whether I should give myself a break and consider that the end of this morning's discussion with Haruhi. But that much was not in my hands.

"Kyon," Haruhi said suddenly, still looking at the ceiling rather than at my face, "...why have you never asked me out in all the time you've known me?"

That was new. But Haruhi rarely did anything old, so I wasn't fazed by the question. "Is there something odd about that?"

"I don't know. But I can't think of many boys I've known who haven't tried asking me out at some point. Still..." She pushed back her hair. "I've known you long enough now that you owe me an honest answer to that question."

I really didn't see how anyone could ever be obligated to answer such a question, but whatever.

Haruhi wasn't looking at the ceiling anymore. She was looking at me, arms folded. "So, why?" she repeated.

 _Oh, where to start? Could it be, Haruhi, that I haven't asked you out because you're the single most unpleasant person I've ever met? Because I anticipate that even one date with you would be agony equivalent to having screws drilled underneath my fingernails? Or how about the blow which being the boyfriend to North High's resident UFOligist would deal to my already bottom-rung social standing? Or just possibly, could it be that having you in my face twice a day every weekday has given us a relationship where dating you would be comparable to dating my sister?_

Haruhi's look of interrogation was turning into a dark scowl. "Are you going to give me some silliness about how I'm like a sister to you?" she demanded.

I hate it when she seems to hear what I'm thinking. Maybe it was that which threw me off. Because really, I know I should have told her our dating would interfere with the SOS Brigade's mission, or that I was clearly not good enough for her.

Instead: "Well, we discussed your thoughts about dating not long after we met. You said that it was a waste of time, and that the only people you would have any interest in dating were aliens, time travelers, and espers." I leaned back and held up a hand of presentation before myself that I am sure would look foolishly pompous if I were to watch it on video. "Being none of those things, I obviously stood no chance."

Her facial expression regressed back to thoughtful. "So what you're saying is, the only reason you didn't ask me out is because you thought I would say no anyway."

"Exactly." Again, I know now I should have nipped that idea in the bud as soon as Haruhi voiced it. But at the moment, it seemed so benign. I'd given her an answer which satisfied her and avoided an argument. What was the harm in that?

* * *

That afternoon was band rehearsal. There were still brief formal SOS Brigade meetings, but band rehearsal had pretty much taken over the club's activities ever since Haruhi had put the SOS Brigade Band together.

The lineup was Haruhi on vocals and guitar, Nagato on lead guitar, yours truly (and unhappily) on bass, and a fellow named Takuma on drums. Koizumi has assured me that, aside from appearing to be half chimpanzee, Takuma is a perfectly normal human being, which he takes as a promising sign that Haruhi is beginning to see there is value in people who are not aliens, time travelers, espers, or sullen homeroom classmates.

I think he's getting his hopes up too much. Takuma had been playing with us for three weeks; I was willing to give him two more days before he gets fed up with Haruhi's bossiness and quits. Also, I suspect the fact that Takuma's home has a fancy soundproof music room for the band to rehearse in probably had more than a little to do with Haruhi's decision to recruit him.

Koizumi got excused from joining the band by telling Haruhi he doesn't know how to play any instruments, even though I know for a fact that he can at least play flute. Somebody explain to me why that excuse didn't work for me, who really and truly could not play a musical instrument. In fact, it would be a fair criticism to say that I still can't. Haruhi had somehow managed to get me to pluck bass strings so that they actually make an appreciable sound, and once my fingers had finished bleeding from that effort, she even taught me a whole bunch of notes, but I managed to forget half of what she taught me from day to day, and when it came to actual playing I simply could not keep up with the rest of the group. Knowing how to play a set of notes is an altogether different thing from being able to move your fingers from one to the next at the requisite speed.

But I digress. Even though Koizumi was excused from being an actual band member, none of the SOS Brigade were exempt from service of some form with the band. Koizumi was assigned the tasks of sound technician (which amounted to turning the knobs on our amplifiers when and how Haruhi directed him to) and concert promoter (designing posters and flyers in anticipation of the fearful day when we would actually play in public), while Miss Asahina was our designated stage decoration. I had a bad feeling that Takuma took that designation a little too seriously from the way he leered at her, but it was hard not to stare when she was wearing that costume that Haruhi had cruelly forced her into. It involved a slight vest with the SOS Brigade logo on the back, a top which did little more than push up her immense cleavage, and a pair of jeans with the legs cut off at just below crotch level.

Our songs were all written, in a bizarre manner, by Haruhi. On our first day we'd used the songs Haruhi and Nagato had played at the last festival, supplemented with a couple standards, for our rehearsal material, but Haruhi was eager to do original material, and that very day she'd proudly presented to us two sheets of paper which she announced as her first songs for the new band. Upon examination, each sheet contained a dozen lines of lyrics accompanied by melodies written in Haruhi's own proprietary, incomprehensible form of musical notation. When we asked where the rest of each song was and what in the world _we_ were supposed to play, she hand waved, "Little details like that can be worked out later. Starting tomorrow, we'll be rehearsing with just my songs!"

It didn't take us long to figure out that "little details" like bass lines and second verses would have to be worked out by the rest of the band. Nagato, as usual, had no input to offer, though you could at least rely on her to know where and where not to include her stunningly perfect guitar fills when it came to rehearsal time.

Thus, most of our songwriting sessions were taken up by me talking Takuma out of using phrases like "grab my love thing" and "flashed my titties" (I repeatedly pointed out that there was no way Haruhi would ever be willing to sing such things - though in actual fact, I'm not so sure she wouldn't) and the two of us hashing out rhythms that I could handle yet which at least somewhat fit with what Haruhi had written. Somehow, miraculously, the neanderthal and the non-musician between them managed to work up viable song structures.

So the next day we rehearsed "Haruhi's" songs, and midway through the first one Haruhi called a halt. "Kyon! Have you lost your mind?! The bass line goes like this!"

She proceeded to demonstrate on her guitar a riff that was energetic, passionate, in every way worlds better than what Takuma and I had come up with - and well beyond my ability to play. For a few seconds I just stared at her in dull stupefaction while Takuma glowered at her in cold rage at having his songwriting efforts so coldly, cleanly, and promptly cut from the band's repertoire.

Eventually I did manage to, if not exactly play, at least fake the bass line that Haruhi had come up with. And so the whole process I've detailed became something of a routine: Haruhi came to us with an unfinished song, Takuma and I crudely finished it so that we'd have something to play at the next rehearsal, only to have Haruhi promptly rewrite most of what we'd come up with, correcting our playing and completely ignoring any lyrics we'd added on to her little sheets.

Anyway, that was how it was. On the afternoon of the day on which Haruhi questioned why I had never asked her out, she sent Miss Asahina off to try to drum up some interest in the band. While I was somewhat concerned about what sort of appearance she was going to make in her band outfit, her absence was a boon to the rehearsal performance. Without her as a distraction, I actually managed to keep up somewhat through all the songs we played.

Which is not to say that I measured up to the rest of the group by any stretch of the imagination. Nagato was of course inhumanly virtuoso, Takuma at his worst maintained both the beat and the energy level, and Haruhi, unbelievably, just seemed to get better and better with each rehearsal, to the point where it seemed it wouldn't be long until she left all three of us behind.

"Alright, that's enough!" she declared at last. "Kyon! You keep holding the rest of us back! Your playing has got to have some feeling and enthusiasm!"

I was surprised. Haruhi was never shy about letting me know how much I outright stank at playing bass, but usually she reserved her criticisms for when she was giving me one-on-one instruction. I had thought she had the sense to see that there was no sense in eating up rehearsal time with chewing me out. And now, when I'd given the best performance of an admittedly miserable career?

I also wasn't in much mood to sit and take it. "I'm doing the best I can. If that's not good enough for you, I don't see why you insisted I be in the band in the first place."

"The best you can, my ass! You played this song better when I first taught it to you! You haven't been practicing, have you?!"

"I'm here every weekday to rehearse with the rest of you. What I do with my free time is my business."

That really seemed to light her dynamite. "Free time? _Your_ business? What kind of SOS Brigade member are you?!"

"That rare kind that has a life of his own, I suppose."

"Watch it, or I'll go ahead and replace you. Mai could do a much better job."

Now I was the one morally outraged. "You're a hero to those girls, and you're thinking about stealing away one of their band members?"

I noticed Takuma looking very pleased at the idea, though I couldn't tell whether it was because then he wouldn't have to work with an incompetent bassist anymore, or because there'd be another cute girl in the band. Probably both. It wouldn't surprise me if he was already picturing himself on a magazine cover with Miss Asahina, Nagato, Mai Zaizen, and Haruhi all half-naked and draped over him, the pervert.

"Rules of larceny don't apply to bands! In the world of rock, there are only two laws: rebellion and music! As the leader of this band, it's my responsibility to make sure we have the best musicians available!"

 _Well, you sure abrogated that responsibility when you recruited a guy who can't play any instruments._

"But I'm a reasonable person..." Haruhi said, spinning her back to me and raising her index finger to the air. "...and I believe you have the potential to be just the bass player the SOS Brigade Band needs. You are to remain here after rehearsal, and I will personally instruct you in playing your instrument."

Takuma sniggered. At first I was bewildered by that, but then I remembered that Takuma's mind inevitably jumped to sex whenever members of the opposite met one-on-one. Assuming he has a male doctor, I'm sure he sniggers in exactly the same manner every time a girl is called into the examination room.

Haruhi spun back upon me, finger still raised to the air. "Understood?" she demanded.

"Yeah, sure." I had a feeling this one-on-one instruction wasn't going to leave me with much time to do my homework, and coming on top of homeroom, SOS Brigade meeting, and band rehearsal it was a quadruple dose of Haruhi Suzumiya for the day, which is a good three doses more than I'd like. Why couldn't she find a boyfriend to spend her spare time with? But I figured I could argue the point after the others had left. No sense in starting a fight when Koizumi was there to be her yes-man, Takuma was there to spot sexual innuendos in every insult that passed between us, and poor Miss Nagato was standing silently there having her time wasted.

We played one last song, during which I slapped my bass strings with the simmering anger I felt at Haruhi and her domineering ways. The increased intensity did not improve the quality of my playing, and Haruhi and Takuma both kept shooting glances at me that showed they were wondering what the hell I was doing. To escape their death glares, I turned my eyes upon Nagato, only to find she was looking at me as well. It was just her usual blank stare, but the mere fact that she was watching me suggested she was equally perplexed at the level of crumminess in my playing.

Still, we all lived through it, and Nagato, Takuma, and Koizumi dispersed, leaving me at Haruhi's mercy.

She took a seat and strummed out a chord on her guitar. "You seemed to have forgotten this part, Kyon. Did you just forget that this chord comes after G in 'Reaching the Mystery', or did you forget how to play your part there entirely?"

I sat down beside her with a sigh; the strap of my bass was really wearing on my shoulder by this point, and I wished I could take the damn thing off. "Haruhi, I really don't have time for music lessons today..."

"Good, because neither do I." _Come again?_ "That was just a cover. But it'll be suspicious if they don't hear us playing as they walk away, so show me that bass line anyway."

I had in fact forgotten how to play that bit entirely, so I peered at where her fingers were on her fretboard and mimicked her.

She nodded her approval. "Don't get the wrong idea. You really do need to put a lot more practice into that instrument if you don't want to get kicked out of the band. The fact that it's true is what makes it such a good cover. But right now we have something more important to deal with."

 _Give me three guesses what it is. That's all I need._

"I think one of the SOS Brigade members may be an alien spy."

"You mean me?" I said this in jest, instinctively trying to somehow deflect suspicion off Nagato. As soon as I said it, however, it hit me that it very well could be me she was talking about. She was certainly foolhardy enough to confront someone with accusations of being an alien spy right to his face.

"Of course not. You'd never lie to me." She took off her guitar and set it on its stand. I assumed that meant I was relieved of musical duties for the day, so with considerable relief I unstrapped my bass and dumped it on the floor. Haruhi scowled. "Can't you treat that thing with more respect? I'm the one who got it for you, after all."

That was true, essentially. When I'd pointed out to her that in addition to not being able to play an instrument, I did not own one, Haruhi had said, "Leave that to me!" with a wicked gleam in her eye. I'd feared she had in mind a scam along the lines of the one she'd used to get the SOS Brigade a computer, but I suppose even Haruhi had the sense to realize that if I were practicing at home with an expensive musical instrument, that would lead to questions, and that I would not be willing or able to lie convincingly. Instead, she walked home with me and talked my parents into loaning me enough to buy an electric bass and amplifier.

I'm not sure how she pulled it off. But if I had to make a guess, I'd say her firm promise to tutor me in how to play the thing played a big part. Some weeks before, I was sitting playing a video game by myself, and I caught my mom looking at me like she could see any hope of grandchildren slipping away. My parents were well aware of the platonic nature of my relationship with Haruhi, but I think they were at the point where they were ready to jump on any opportunity for their son to spend quality one-on-one time with one of his peers, whether prospective wife or no.

Bass tutoring was usually held in the clubroom, but one day we had our amplifiers turned up to full band volume and consequently got kicked out due to the noise. Haruhi declared we would finish up the lesson at my house. In due order we were seated together on my couch, plucking strings, Haruhi showing me above average patience. Before long she bored of this and yanked me to my feet, declaring that it was time for me to "really get into it."

As near as I could tell from Haruhi's demonstration, this meant playing simple riffs while moving, swaying, and jumping as though the music you were playing had complete control of your body. I followed suit in my own awkward way, though probably too much of my concentration was taken up by the sight and sound of Haruhi doing her wild thing. At one point my mother glanced in at the two of us romping around and nodded with approval, as if to say, "Cost of electric bass guitar, justified."

But all that said nothing about how I felt about the thing. "I never asked for it," I answered Haruhi. "In fact, I specifically told you that I had no interest in playing in your band."

"Don't change the subject! Musical instruments are to be treated with care and respect, all the more so when they come as a favor from your brigade leader." She folded her arms. "Anyway, Mikuru's the one I think is an alien spy. Doesn't she seem a bit too conveniently moe? No one could really be that adorably helpless and distressed all the time."

 _I think after the trauma you subjected Miss Asahina to in her first few days with the SOS Brigade, practically anyone would have been reduced to a similar quivering, whimpering state as her._

"And certainly no human of her height could have breasts that large!"

 _I'll admit she's shorter and more buxom than you, but you're still hardly in a position to complain about someone having unfairly large breasts. Or an unfairly attractive body in general._

"To say nothing of that dulcet voice. Do you see what I'm getting at, Kyon?"

"Yes," I sighed. "But you've forgotten a few things. Moe girls are supposed to be adorably clumsy. As you yourself have noted, Miss Asahina has yet to spill a drop of tea on me or Koizumi, and despite North High's conveniently short-skirted uniform, and the even shorter skirts of the costumes you make her wear, she has not once accidentally flashed her panties to the best of my knowledge. More importantly, she did not seek membership in the SOS Brigade; you captured her and took her in against her will."

"Because she lured me in with her moe appeal, remember? Get it?"

"And how would she have known you were looking for a girl with moe appeal?"

"Alien intelligence, Kyon. Try to keep up." She stood up and started pacing. "We need to set up surveillance quick, before she realizes we're on to her."

"That's another thing. Why does Miss Asahina's nature suddenly seem suspicious to you now, after you've known her for six months?"

"Now, pay attention. I got Mikuru's address from school records." Clearly, my voice was not being heard. "I told her to spend two hours drumming up attention for the band, so if we head to her home now we should have at least a half hour lead on her."

Uh oh. I could imagine what Haruhi's reaction would be if she found out that _another_ North High student was living in an apartment with no parents about. Ordinarily I might play neutral on that, since it would at least keep Haruhi from being bored for a while, but I owed it to dear Miss Asahina to keep North High's paranormal super sleuth off her case. I needed to think of something quick.

Haruhi's voice was getting increasingly excited. "First we'll question her landlord and neighbors, pretending that we're trying to get together with Mikuru on a club project. With luck, in the process we'll hit upon a way of getting into her apartment. If we do get inside, we can have a look around and set up a camera to catch her shifting back to alien form, or any other suspicious behavior. If not, we'll find a hiding place, and when she gets back -"

"Hold on," I interrupted. "Didn't Miss Asahina tell you? She and her family are going on a camping trip for the weekend. She won't be coming back home today, and even if you did set up a camera, it would run out of memory long before the camping trip was done. And of course her landlord and neighbors would get suspicious of us if we acted as though she were supposed to be at home."

 _Yes! Brilliant thinking!_ I congratulated myself.

Haruhi bit her lip with anger. "No, Miss Asahina certainly did _not_ tell me she was going on a camping trip! I'll be sure to discuss that with her when she comes back - or when we expose her as an alien spy, whichever comes first. Do you know where they went camping to?"

"Yeah, Lake Tenapa."

Obviously, I should have denied knowing. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. But I was making the story up as I went along, and with the exceptional level of idiocy I was demonstrating this month, I blurted out a location, thinking for that split second that details like that made the story more credible.

"Hmm." Haruhi had stopped pacing. She looked thoughtfully at the ceiling, in almost the same manner as she had that morning in homeroom. By this point I was realizing my mistake, and Haruhi's odd manner had set my morbid imagination running wild at what she might have in mind. I could feel my heart pounding.

Then she turned and looked at me intensely and very deliberately. "Kyon," she said. "Would you like to go with me to Lake Tenapa tomorrow?"

 _What the heck? She's asking me? Not ordering me?_

"We could observe Mikuru and her family right when they must think that no one's watching them," she elaborated when I didn't answer right away. "But if you already have weekend plans..."

 _Now I_ know _something's not right here. Just asking if I want to do something doesn't mean she can't say "Tough beans, you're going anyway," if I say no, but she really sounds like she's willing to let me turn her down. Why in the world would Haruhi be willing to take "no" for an answer?_

"No, I don't have any weekend plans..." I answered.

"So it's a yes, then?"

Alien hunting with Haruhi was not my idea of a fun way to spend a Saturday. But I'd dug myself into a bit of a hole. If Haruhi went to Lake Tenapa by herself and found Mikuru not there, there'd be hell to pay. If I tagged along, maybe I could figure something out to misdirect her. At the least, my participating in the search for extraterrestrial life would make it much less obvious that I'd lied. Besides, itching at my brain was the irrational belief that if I said yes on this, the first occasion Haruhi had offered me a choice, I would be rewarded in some way. Perhaps she might even stop ordering me around entirely and start routinely asking for favors like a normal well-adjusted human being.

So I nodded. "Yeah, I'd like to go with you."

I really, really should have said no.

* * *

After that comment, you're probably dying to know the juicy details of my Lake Tenapa adventure with Haruhi. But as regrettable as it would later prove, that adventure of itself has very little that can be said about it. A few minor oddities aside, it was as dull a day as I could have hoped for.

Though Haruhi had firmly stated that our mission must remain secret to avoid tipping off the Asahinas, I of course asked my parents for permission, which they gave readily. I had promised to be back by nightfall, and Lake Tenapa was a public area, so they had little to worry about.

I also called Miss Asahina to fill her in on the situation so she would be prepared when Haruhi asked her about her camping trip. She very sweetly offered to get some people to pose as her family and go with them to Lake Tenapa in order to corroborate my story, but I begged her not to. It would only further complicate the lie, and I didn't want the lovely girl to be in harm's way when Haruhi was in full alien hunter mode - there was no telling what could happen. She cooed her gratitude for my concern, making my heart go a flutter.

I met up with Haruhi bright and early. She was wearing a ponytail and a sweatshirt that I'd always thought she looked particularly good in. I really hope that the sweatshirt at least was a coincidence, because I'm pretty sure I never said anything about it out loud. Naturally, I provided the transportation, wearily pedaling while Haruhi just clung to my shoulders and enjoyed the ride.

After we reached the camp grounds, we walked around for a couple hours before Haruhi called a break. She'd prepared lunches for us, and we sat and ate them while relaxing against a tree and idly discussing the nearby flora and fauna.

I'm only covering the highlights, and the day still sounds incredibly boring.

The only thing that happened that was even mildly interesting was in the mid-afternoon. After walking through the woods together for a few more hours, I scratched my head and said, "I just don't get it. We've searched every campsite, and I'm sure Miss Asahina said they'd be here... Maybe I misunderstood, and she was talking about a later weekend?"

But Haruhi just shrugged. "Don't worry about it." She went and sat down by the edge of the lake.

She seemed so completely unconcerned... Suddenly I had the weird feeling that _I_ was the one who had come there under false pretenses.

She picked up a little stone. "Have you ever skipped rocks?"

"Sure."

She gave me a daredevil grin. "Well, come on, show me what you've got!"

I bent down, scooped up a suitably smooth one, and flung it across the water. It did a double skip and then cut beautifully into the lake. Grinning, I said, "Not bad, huh?"

Without a word, Haruhi pulled back the stone she'd been holding and give it a throw as focused as that of any major league pitcher. It skipped across the water... one, two, three... four, five... six times.

I gawked at it in defeat. "Do you have to be the best at everything?" I demanded.

"Nope! I just am."

"Good grief." I dropped to sit beside her.

She looked at me seriously. "That really bothers you?"

"What? Oh, I guess not. It's more that I wish I was good at just one thing too."

"You could be," she said, "If you would just spend more time practicing that bass."

"Alright, that's enough about that." I picked up another stone. "Show me again. So I'll know that first one wasn't just a lucky fluke."

She grabbed a stone and threw it out. Five skips.

Well, at least she didn't get six skips again - or even more. For the heck of it, I threw the stone I was holding. It got a sort of half skip, rudely splatting the surface of the water once and then hitting again to sink completely.

I sighed. "I know," I held up a hand to hold off what I figured she would say. "I know. I could get better with practice. But is it worth it, just to be good at skipping rocks?"

It was silent for a moment. Then she said, "You are good at something. I pick my SOS Brigade members very carefully."

Which was such a ridiculous lie that I could have laughed out loud. Hell, she picked Koizumi just because he was an exchange student.

To make it even more ridiculous, she lay her head on my shoulder. I stole a glance at her just to be sure, and no, she didn't look the least bit tired. So I didn't have a clue why she was putting her head on my shoulder. Looking back, I really should have started to put two and two together at that point, but instead I just sat there, blissfully ignorant.

We examined the grounds for another hour, and then went home.

* * *

Monday morning Haruhi looked bright and cheerful, even signaling me with a wave as I entered the classroom. More madcap activities were in store for the SOS Brigade, I feared.

"So," I said to her as I sat down, "did you check out the Asahinas' apartment yesterday to see if they were around?" Miss Asahina had informed me that she was reporting back to the future for the weekend, so I was confident Haruhi could have found nothing there to contradict the camping story.

"No." Suddenly she sounded bored. "It would have been a waste of time. If they were there, it would just mean you were mistaken about the date. If they weren't there, it would just mean we overlooked their campsite. Or they were using cloaking technology." She raised her eyes to me. "You didn't think I'd have gone there all by myself, do you? I would have at least brought you along for protection."

 _The thought that you rarely leave me out of your misadventures had occurred to me, yes. However..._ "Aren't you in a hurry to find out whether or not Miss Asahina is an alien spy?"

"Not anymore. If you think about it, Mikuru's been at North High for longer than I have, and there's no way aliens could have known that far ahead of time that I'd come here, start the SOS Brigade, and look for a moe girl to join us."

 _Isn't that basically the same thing I said when you first suggested that Miss Asahina might be an alien?_

"By the way," she said, looking out the window as though she wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying anymore. "I suppose I should give you advance notice. I'm going to tell the rest of the SOS Brigade at today's meeting."

"Tell them what?"

But class was called to order before Haruhi could answer me. I should have (there's that phrase again) pressed her for an answer at the risk of being chastised for disrupting the class, but the way she said it, it didn't sound terribly important. Anyway, I'd find out like everyone else in a few hours, right?

* * *

When I got to the SOS Brigade clubroom, Koizumi and Nagato were already there, and Miss Asahina was making the tea. Surprisingly, Haruhi was also already there at the computer. Maybe my hypothesis about her having big plans for the group today was off the mark?

"You're late," she grunted, as though her mind was more occupied with something else. "Penalty!"

"Sure," I said, and sat down. By this time Haruhi's power games bored me more than they annoyed me.

She got to her feet. "Everyone, I have some news! It is of a personal nature, but you're all bound to find out about it eventually, so better I just announce it now. I have a boyfriend."

 _Did she just say...?_

Nagato must have heard the news, and presumably had some sort of opinion on it, but she just kept reading. The rest of us were not so mute. Koizumi, Miss Asahina, and I broke into happy applause. It was all I could do to keep my clapping polite and not break out into whooping and cheering.

 _Yes! Yes, yes, yeeeeesssss! No more having to spend my after-school hours slaving away to Haruhi's insane demands! Finally, she has something to do with herself besides make my life a living hell!_

Haruhi was beaming at the applause, but she kept her tone officious. "I want to assure you all that whatever you might hear to the contrary, this will in no way interfere with my duties as leader of the SOS Brigade."

 _Ha ha, not if I can help it, Haruhi! I'm going to meet with this boyfriend of yours and - well, first of all, I'm going to shake his hand! But then I'm going to tell him everything I've learned about you in the months I've spent as your personal doormat, so he knows every trick there is to making you happy! I'll collude with Koizumi too, since he always seems to know what's going on in your head on any given day. Your boyfriend is going to have every possible asset in making you so romantically blissful that you won't even want to think about the SOS Brigade!_

"So," I said aloud, "Who is it? This lucky boyfriend of yours, I mean."

Haruhi glared at me as though I'd just asked the stupidest question she had ever heard. "You, moron."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: Don't worry, I'm sticking to my promise not to put author's notes in every single chapter. I just wanted to let anyone interested in looking at the full size version of this fic's cover art know that it's now up on DeviantArt, with the title "Commission 0085, Haruhi and Kyon". While I'm here, thanks again to everyone who has reviewed! It's always a great reassurance to know whether or not an aspect of my story worked.

* * *

 _ **Chapter 2** : In which Kyon comes out of the catatonic shock he experienced immediately following the end of chapter 1 somewhat worse for the wear, and it falls to Koizumi to pull him together and provide a reasonable assessment of the situation_

 _There was a comma in that sentence._

Of course, you can't actually hear a comma. And I certainly didn't want to believe that there had been a comma. If Haruhi had said "You moron", then that sentence was just an insult, and quite tame by Haruhi's standards. She was either annoyed that I hadn't already guessed who her boyfriend was, or offended that I had the impropriety to ask.

But I knew that that wasn't it. She had said "You, moron." The answer to my question.

There were three reasons why I couldn't escape this fact. First, as usual, Haruhi enunciated very deliberately. While not impossible, it was exceedingly difficult to confuse a comma for an absence thereof when she was talking.

Second, as soon as she said it, everyone looked at me. Even Nagato. Most striking was Miss Asahina, who let out a little dismayed gasp at the revelation, clutched her hands to her chest as though trying to hold together the pieces of her breaking heart, sending me a look through tear-filled eyes that seemed to say, _Why didn't you tell me?_

Third, all those pieces I mentioned from Friday and Saturday were finally falling into place. The implication that I had wanted to ask Haruhi out but always believed she would have said no. Haruhi asking, rather than ordering, me to come with her to Lake Tenapa. Her lack of concern over our inability to find Miss Asahina there. The homemade lunches. The ponytail, the sweatshirt, the head resting on my shoulder for no good reason! It all added up to one thing!

 _Hunting for aliens with me at Lake Tenapa fell under Haruhi Suzumiya's definition of a date!_

Sitting there in the SOS Brigade clubroom, all eyes upon me, fresh with the knowledge that I was the official boyfriend of our club's leader... If someone had asked me at that moment if I would like to die, I would have answered, "Oh god, yes please, and quickly."

I was a little fuzzy about what was going on around me after that moment. I think Haruhi promptly moved on to the next order of business, the band, thus averting any questions that would otherwise have been posed to me by Koizumi and Miss Asahina. Which was good, because I don't think my brain was ready to process conversation again.

At any rate, some minutes later Haruhi, Nagato, and Miss Asahina had left the clubroom, and Koizumi's face was within two inches of mine, saying, "Kyon? Didn't you hear Miss Suzumiya? We're leaving for band rehearsal now."

Instead of falling backwards to get away from Koizumi's face, I grabbed him by the tie and pulled that face an inch closer. "Get me out of this," I pleaded.

"Well, if you simply play as badly as you did on that final number last Friday - or worse, if that's possible -"

"I'm not talking about band rehearsal!" I jerked on his tie, and was rewarded with a slight choking sound. "Haruhi already works me to the bone just with my being an ordinary low-ranking member of the SOS Brigade. Being her boyfriend will kill me!"

"Ah, so it was a misunderstanding. I suspected as much. Well, the solution is simple then, isn't it? Simply explain to Miss Suzumiya that she misinterpreted your intentions, and that you do not want to go out with her."

"Oh yes, of course, a perfect solution. Except that then she'll kill me with her bare hands!"

"I was joking."

"Well, stop joking!"

"Certainly. After you let go of my tie."

For a moment, neither of us moved or said a word. My usual calm reasserted itself. I released Koizumi's tie. "Sorry," I said.

"Quite all right," he smiled. "Now, I want you to maintain your calm... as I tell you that I think the best thing you can do is let things run their natural course."

"Which is?"

"That you and Miss Suzumiya spend time with each other in a romantic fashion for as long as she desires."

"But that could be for the rest of my life! It's your belief that she's in love with me, isn't it? You imply that over and over. Do you expect me to walk up the altar with her if it comes to that?"

Koizumi shook his head, still smiling. "Now I think I understand why you got so upset about this. You've confused the courtship process with love. The two are related, certainly, but not the same, and the differences are most crucial in Miss Suzumiya's case. Yes, Miss Suzumiya has strong feelings for you, and perhaps is even in love with you, but she does not realize those feelings. If she did, she would have pursued a relationship with you immediately, and with enough vigor that you could not possibly misunderstand your being her boyfriend. In addition, Miss Suzumiya has rejected the social conventions of dating, courtship, and marriage."

"I thought she had, too. But she asked me out on what she apparently thought was a date, and now has declared me her boyfriend..."

"Correct. But you remember when she had the SOS Brigade form a baseball team? She considered baseball boring, but she did it with us anyway. Her selecting you as her boyfriend is really no different. She has no interest in dating of itself, but she sees it as another way of spending time with you."

"As if we didn't spend enough time together as it is," I grumbled.

"It's not a question of how much time you spend together." His smile became very bright. "I believe Miss Suzumiya wants to get to know you in as many ways as she can. From as many angles as possible. Therefore, she is trying out different experiences to share with you. Dating is simply the latest in the series."

"That's a relief, I suppose. So if I break up with her, it won't hurt her feelings?"

Koizumi shook his head. "Again, I recommend you let Miss Suzumiya make the call as to when your love affair should end. While I doubt that your breaking it off would affect her at a deep enough emotional level to prompt her to, say, destroy the world, these things can be unpredictable. Besides, you may find dating Miss Suzumiya enjoyable. You must have desired it at some level."

"I don't even like Haruhi, much less want to date her."

"Permit me to doubt you. A minute ago you indicated that it was Haruhi who made the first move in asking you out, did you not?"

"Yeah, so?"

"I find it hard to believe that someone as proud as Miss Suzumiya would do such a thing unless she had seen some indication that you liked her. Think carefully. In the past month or two, was there not even a single moment that you thought you might fancy Miss Suzumiya?"

"Nnnn." I thought back. "...The day after the school festival. After she gave that amazing performance with the band. She'd been so incredible, and the band were so thankful to her, and when I spoke to her during lunch break, she seemed so thoughtful, that I thought maybe she'd learned something from the whole thing, that she had come to like helping people. And so yes, I started to feel a bit fond of her."

"Good. So perhaps -"

"It lasted all of thirty seconds," I said with cold frustration. "That's how long it took her to demonstrate that the thoughtfulness I saw in her was as centered on her own self-glorification as ever. ...She got me to like her for the same amount of time when she offered to help me edit our movie. I was stupid enough to assume she really meant help, not badger me while I did all the work."

"I see." Koizumi pondered a moment or two. "Then, you have faith that Miss Suzumiya can become a better person."

"She had damn well better. As it stands, she's so selfish and obnoxious that she'll never have any real friends, just sycophants who are afraid of her destroying the world."

"So you not only have great faith in her, you're concerned for her well being," he observed. "Can't you then find it in you to simply enjoy her company?"

"Now you're the one confusing two different things. Not even related things." I turned to go. "Being worried about someone is completely different from wanting to spend time with them."

* * *

Needless to say, both Koizumi and I arrived late to band practice, to Haruhi's displeasure.

"The whole lot of you are trying my patience!" she yelled. Behind her Takuma rolled his eyes; I got the sense that he and Nagato had had to listen to her ranting up until we arrived. "Bad enough that I had to send Mikuru home because she wasn't feeling well -"

"Miss Asahina was unwell?" I wondered if it had something to do with the revelation that I was Haruhi's boyfriend. I wished I'd had a chance to talk to her before she left. Actually, I guess I _did_ have such an opportunity, but I was too out of it at the time.

"Only a stomachache or something like that. I'd have made her stay, but I couldn't see the sense in her hanging around when we didn't even have all the members we needed to do any rehearsing! You two have thrown everything off-kilter! Come on, get your gear together and let's go!"

We got down to business, ripping through a half dozen songs. This time, Miss Asahina's absence was nearly as distracting as her presence. I couldn't help but worry about her, and wonder when I might have the opportunity to explain to her about my dating Haruhi. My bass playing did approximately follow along with the rest of the band, but I felt even less motivated than usual to give my best.

Hearing Haruhi perform, even in mere rehearsal, was an experience at once inspiring and infuriating. You couldn't stop wondering how someone could sing with such passion and tenderness yet be so completely rotten and heartless on the inside. It was unfair, in the same way that her stellar academic performance and stunning beauty were unfair.

After we finished playing and started packing up our equipment, Takuma announced that his home would not be available to the band for the next couple days. Haruhi decided that we'd made enough progress that we could have a day off from band rehearsal, and would reconvene on Wednesday in the SOS Brigade clubroom.

"You're not planning to have us rehearse there, are you?" I said.

She shot me her usual glare. "If you have a better idea, propose it at tomorrow's meeting of the SOS Brigade. Oh!" Her expression suddenly brightened, and she darted across the room to her bookbag. "I almost forgot! I've written a new song!" After a strangely long amount of time shuffling through her things, she brought out the photocopied sheets and handed them out to us. Then she dashed off, calling over her shoulder, "Be sure you all know how to play it by Wednesday! That goes double for you, Kyon!"

I was a little afraid to look at the sheet, worried that she might have been inspired by our recent date to write something romantic. But my hesitation passed, and reading it over I saw that no, it was some esoteric anthem about espionage in space, or something like that. At the top it read "Iridescent Moonrise". And as usual, it was unfinished.

However, it was clear that romance had not been entirely off Haruhi's mind. Written in the margin of the sheet in pencil it said, "Meet me outside my place at 7 tomorrow for dinner and movie". Apparently, our second date had been scheduled, and with no input from me whatsoever.

Takuma lowered his sheet and looked at me. "So, you wanna hash this song out?"

I sighed and shrugged. "Might as well get it over with."

We sat down at a table in his bedroom and poured over our copies of "Iridescent Moonrise". After we finished mouthing out the melody like a couple of scat singing goobers, Takuma suggested a simple bass line. Even with my still-deteriorating memory of bass lessons, I could play it without trouble. I guess Takuma had gotten a sense of my limitations as a bass player.

We rattled a few ideas back and forth about how the drums should go, then picked up our sheets again to get a look at the lyrics.

"So," Takuma said. "You and Suzumiya, huh? When did that become a thing?"

If it had been someone else, I'd have held onto the possibility that he was referring to our relationship as fellow SOS Brigade members or our relationship as bass teacher and student. But this was Takuma we were talking about.

I played it cool. "What makes you think it is a 'thing'?"

He snorted. "Dude, her love letter's right there on your copy of the song. Right in front of my eyes, dude."

Oh, right. I didn't think of that. In my defense, though, even if I had taken the public visibility of Haruhi's penciled note into account, there wasn't anything I could have done to prevent its discovery. It was written right next to the song, so the only way to hide it would be to crumple it into my pocket before the songwriting session started, and that would have aroused Takuma's suspicions for sure. _Haruhi, you could learn a lot from Nagato and Miss Asahina about leaving discrete notes._

"Okay," I held my hands up in surrender. "It started this weekend. She asked me out, just out of the blue. We've only had one date."

"And she still doesn't cut you any slack." He shook his head in commiseration. "Don't take this the wrong way, man, but have you started to think yet that maybe she's not worth it?"

 _Oh, great. Now I have to defend Haruhi against criticism that I completely agree with._ "She's not an easy person to deal with," I said. "But she keeps my life exciting."

"Yeah? What's she like between the sheets?"

 _Unbelievable. Every time you start to think Takuma is a guy you can have a halfway decent conversation with, he drops something like this._

"How would I know?" I shot back, putting on a layer of disinterest in hopes of discouraging him.

"You will before too long." He grinned. "When a girl's that bossy and aggressive all the time, it's 'cause she's all pent up and rarin' to go."

That did it.

"Like you'd know anything about that," I retorted. I got up and stormed off.

I know, I know... You're probably wondering why I didn't deck the jerk. Honestly, if it were Nagato or Miss Asahina we were talking about, or heck, probably just about any other girl I knew, I would have. Honest. But I just couldn't get that outraged on Haruhi's behalf. Of course, she didn't deserve to have things like that said about her. Not even remotely. But she just wasn't the sort of girl to have men defending her honor with their fists.

...Alright, alright. I don't know. Maybe I was just afraid he'd punch me back.

"Hey," Takuma called after me. "Aren't we gonna work on the lyrics?"

"Why bother?" I grabbed my jacket and my bass. "You know Haruhi will just ignore whatever crap we come up with."

Heading out the door, I saw Takuma hovering over the song sheet with pen in hand, grinning as he scribbled out lyrics. _Moron. What did I just tell you? I don't know why we even bother completing the musical parts of Haruhi's songs. I guess we keep hoping that eventually Haruhi will decide to let us have a voice in the band's songs, and let us use bass lines that I'm capable of mastering._

 _Fat chance on either count._


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3**_ : _In which Kyon and Mikuru express their feelings, and shed sweet tears, and share hidden longings, and unconsciously parallel elements from the final scene of Casablanca_

"Hey hey!" Taniguchi called as he and Kunikada caught up to me. "I hear you finally put the moves on Haruhi Suzumiya!"

This was Tuesday morning. My "first date" with Haruhi had been on Saturday. The announcement that I was her boyfriend was on Monday - in other words, yesterday. I was confident that none of the SOS Brigade members would have gossiped about it, so that left only one possible leak: Takuma. Now I had one more reason to want to kill that toad.

"I hope you haven't told that to anyone else," I said.

"What, is it not true?"

"Let's just say I wouldn't tell it to anyone else if I were you."

"Why so secretive about it? I would think you would want this news shouted from the rooftops."

"Why, because Haruhi is an A+?" I said drily.

"Suzumiya, A+? Only if you're judging strictly by looks! No, because it implies you only joined the SOS Brigade to get in her good graces and become her boyfriend. It's a bit pathetic that it took you half a year to get an actual date, but it's a lot better than having people think you were actually enjoying all those deranged activities the SOS Brigade gets up to."

 _If I'm pathetic for supposedly taking half a year to get one specific girl to go out with me, then what does that say about you, who have been playing the whole field for the same amount of time without getting a date?_ "Since neither of those theories is true, I don't really care which one people believe."

"I've always thought you and Miss Suzumiya would make a cute couple," Kunikada chimed in. "Sort of a yin and yang thing, you know? The morose guy and the hyperactive weirdo."

 _First Takuma, then Taniguchi, and now Kunikada. Why is it that suddenly everyone seems to be doing their best to make me want to punch them?_

"I know I recommended you stay away from Haruhi Suzumiya," Taniguchi said. "But really, you could have done worse."

 _Yes, I could have no girlfriend, like you._

"For example -"

"Look," I interrupted. "I don't want the news spread, okay? This thing between me and Haruhi may not last long enough to be worth talking about."

"That's true," Kunikada said. "You said the record for Suzumiya's boyfriends is one week, right, Taniguchi?"

"All the same, it's interesting," Taniguchi persisted. "For someone who's known Suzumiya as long as Kyon to start dating her now..."

I was sorely tempted to tell Taniguchi the truth: that I'd been roped into it. It was less embarrassing than to listen to them speculate about how infatuated I was with Haruhi and for how long. And it wasn't like I had to mention Haruhi's powers to explain the situation.

But I quickly discarded that idea. Haruhi was still hardly a social butterfly, but she had been conversing with other students a lot more than she had when we first met. When word got to her that I was only her boyfriend because I felt I had no choice in the matter, she'd be humiliated. And that would mean she'd be out for my blood. It just wasn't worth the risk.

* * *

I was a little afraid to talk to Haruhi in homeroom. This was, after all, the first time we'd be conversing with a date penciled in to our calendars. I contemplated challenging her having made that date without my consent, but since I in fact had no other plans for after 7, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on there as far as Haruhi was concerned.

"Did you start learning that song yet?" she asked.

"Yeah, I got a good start on it."

"Good."

Was that her coy way of confirming our date? Why couldn't she be direct? Then again, maybe she really did just want to make sure I was staying on top of band activities.

I decided to go ahead and see if she'd be willing to discuss anything on the boyfriend/girlfriend front. "Did you have a place in mind for dinner this evening?"

She made a murmur of disinterest. "Wherever you like is fine."

So, she wasn't shy about it, it seemed. I should have left it at that. But I couldn't help but be curious what would happen if I struck a little deeper. "We should be doing things a bit differently now that we're boyfriend and girlfriend, shouldn't we? Like... calling each other pet names, or wearing armbands, or me carrying your books for you?"

"Ugh. Those are all terrible ideas."

"Well... If you have better ones..." I really have no idea why I wasn't shutting up at this point. Asking Haruhi for ideas is like leaving a first grade class unsupervised: there's no telling what might happen, but you can reasonably expect some form of unadulterated chaos.

"Me?" She sounded indignant. "Let me make this real easy on you. Unless we're on a date, you don't do anything different. Here and now, for all intents and purposes you are not my boyfriend and I am not your girlfriend. You are simply a member of the SOS Brigade, and I am your leader. Got it?"

"...Got it," I said, and turned back towards the front of the class.

That really did make it sound like the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing was just another way for her to pass her time, like Koizumi said. Except that I couldn't help but notice a current of disappointment in her voice. I was pretty sure she was sincere about not wanting to use pet names or any of that, so maybe she'd been hoping I would come up with something along the same lines but better.

On second thought, that was probably overthinking things. After all, dissatisfaction was Haruhi's default state of mind.

The reason all of this was so important was because I figured that if I was going to break up with Haruhi, now was the time to do it. If I let things drag out to a second date, and beyond, it would only be more painful for her in the end, and more painful for _me_ in the meantime. I definitely was itching to get out of this as soon as possible.

And why not? Like Koizumi said, this clearly wasn't a matter of love. If I broke up with her, all Haruhi would feel was the same childish frustration and indignation she showed whenever I vetoed one of her outlandish decisions. She would pout and promptly get over it.

 _Go on, you coward. Turn around and tell her it's over. Tell her you don't have the time for her in your life right now._ _T_ _ell her you're not good enough for her if you think that'll reduce the likelihood of her throwing a hissy fit. Get it over with._

But I didn't move or say anything, and class started.

I don't really have one clear reason why I couldn't do it. Maybe I figured it wasn't worth the attempt, knowing how adept Haruhi is at not taking no for an answer. I was also feeling a bit less afraid of dating her; given how cool and businesslike she talked about it, I was beginning to think it really would be just another activity. And I couldn't quite shake the feeling that breaking up with her would have some emotional impact.

It wasn't that I was afraid she might destroy the world or something. I'm sorry, but that idea just doesn't bother me that much most of the time. It's just... Going by what Koizumi said, all she wanted was to spend some time with me in a different context. With all the cruelty I'd put up with from her, I think I'd feel like a jerk for denying her something as innocent as that.

* * *

I had hoped to speak with Miss Asahina in private after that day's meeting of the SOS Brigade, but to my profound frustration and deep concern, she did not show up to the meeting. All that awaited me was Koizumi's damn smile, a pointless game of Go, Nagato's blank stare, her dry as dishwater book, the harsh sunlight shining in through the windows, the computer running our worthless homepage, and worst of all, Haruhi seated in front of it, grumbling her irritation.

Ordinarily I'd welcome an ordinary sort of day like this for the SOS Brigade, but the situation with Miss Asahina kept gnawing at me. Moreover, no matter how little Haruhi's attitude seemed changed by it, I felt distinctly uncomfortable sitting in the same room as my official girlfriend.

At any rate, I lived through it. Haruhi went home early, and Koizumi and I finished up our game. As we made the last few moves, Koizumi said to me, "Word that you're Miss Suzumiya's boyfriend has been getting around."

I grunted my annoyance, though I really hadn't expected anything less.

"Try not to let it bother you. In the end, what other people think about you two doesn't really matter."

I said nothing to that. He was probably right, but it didn't make me feel any better.

"So, have you another date lined up?"

"This evening."

"Very good. Kyon?"

"Yes?"

"Try to have a good time with Miss Suzumiya."

He left. I lingered behind.

It was just me and Nagato. I cast a glance at her. "What's your opinion on all this?"

She did not even look up from her book. "My duty is to only observe."

 _Damn it, I know you can't interfere, but can't you even have a simple opinion?_ "Okay... What do you think will happen if I break up with Haruhi?"

"Information at present is insufficient for even an educated guess at that outcome."

 _Argh. Okay, option B..._ "If I don't break up with her, how long do you think it will take for her to break up with me?"

"She will not."

For a moment I just froze stiff. I could hardly breathe. "...What?"

"Haruhi Suzumiya will not break up with you."

"...But she hates dating," I protested. "She told me she hates dating, and that she's hated dating every boy she's ever dated!"

"She likes dating you. All available information leads to this conclusion."

My instinct was to turn to what Koizumi had told me. But then I realized... _You fool! You trusted Koizumi? He just told you exactly what you wanted to hear, exactly what would make you feel complacent enough to not break up with Haruhi!_

"Shut up," I growled, and got up to leave. Nagato's eyes still hadn't left her book.

As my eyes fell upon the doorway, however, I saw something which made all my feelings of frustration and entrapment seem to fade to nothing. Our clubroom angel. Miss Asahina.

She looked mortified, the fingers of her two hands curling and twisting together in front of her skirt, her upper teeth cutely biting her trembling lip, eyes seemingly on the brink of tears. It occurred to me that she had probably been standing there long enough to catch a good portion of my conversation with Nagato.

I strode towards her. "Miss Asahina," I said ardently.

She looked down. "I was afraid to come to the meeting today," she said. "I couldn't bear to face Miss Suzumiya, after... yesterday... But.."

"Being Haruhi's boyfriend wasn't my idea," I assured her. "She decided it all on her own."

"I knew that... I mean... I didn't know that, but... Well, it had to be, didn't it?"

"I didn't even know about it until the same time you did. Otherwise I would have told you earlier."

"Oh, Kyon," she breathed. "I shouldn't have doubted you, even for a moment."

"The fact of the matter is..." There was really no need for me to say this right now. I'd dispelled Miss Asahina's unfortunate misconception; that was all that needed to be done. But she was so beautiful standing there, even not wearing one of her many costumes, and she was so breathless that I couldn't help but feel that the moment was now. "... Miss Asahina, if I had the choice of who I were to date, it would be you."

"Huh?" she gasped, and recoiled, staring at my face in dismay. "Oh... n-n-no! You don't have to say that!"

"But..." I floundered. "Wouldn't you... also prefer it that way, for me to be with you instead of Haruhi?"

"No!" She shook her head vehemently, then flushed. "I mean... yes, but... Oh, it's what I've always wanted... but..."

"But nothing. I'll call it off with Haruhi. I had half a mind to do that anyway."

"No!" She gripped my arm. "No... You musn't! If you break Miss Suzumiya's heart, she will destroy the world! I can't be responsible for that!"

"Haruhi is tougher than you give her credit for. I doubt she even has a heart to break."

"No, that's not true!" she wailed. "When you - Oh, it's classified information, but can't you trust me... Our desires mean nothing against the weight of the whole world, of all those billions of innocent lives! You must continue to date Miss Suzumiya until the danger is past!"

"And what if Nagato is right? What if she never wants to end it?"

"Then it must never end."

I gawked at her in disbelief that she would ask me to accept such a fate. "And what about you?"

She smiled with sweet sadness and resolve against the tears running down her cheeks. "I'll be fine. After all, even if Miss Suzumiya didn't want you to be her boyfriend, I couldn't date you in any case. I am forbidden to date anyone from the past, remember? The consequences to the time stream would be catastrophic."

"Consequences to the time stream..." I grumbled.

Suddenly I was overcome with disgust for Miss Asahina, for all of them in the SOS Brigade. If their positions were reversed, Haruhi would have demanded I break up with Miss Asahina and start dating her immediately, and to hell with whatever risk that meant to the world, to the billions of innocent people, and to the time stream. Of course those things were important, but if none of them were willing to make a stand against Haruhi, even hiding their feelings in order to kowtow to her, then how could you call that really living?

I left the clubroom, brushing my way past Miss Asahina without saying goodbye to either her or Nagato. At that moment I felt that both of them could go to the devil.

And yes, of course I myself was hiding my feelings from Haruhi, but that was different. Because I wasn't doing it out of cowardice. I didn't tell Haruhi how much I disliked her because I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

I suppose it could be called ironic, but it was my disgust at Miss Asahina's exhortation to continue dating Haruhi that made up my mind to do just that. After all, if Miss Asahina was unwilling to fight to be with me, what reason was there not to?


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4** : _In which Kyon and Haruhi go on a second date, which more closely resembles normal ideas of what a date is than their first one did, in some ways to Kyon's relief and in some ways to the opposite_

After I got home I did what I could with my homework, and then prepped myself for my date. My parents and sister knew that I was going to be with Haruhi, but I opted to leave the "date" part out of it, allowing them to assume she was giving me more bass tutoring. I knew that I couldn't hide what was going on forever, but I was still holding out some hope that Haruhi would break up with me in a day or two. If it went on longer than that, I could let the secret out then.

In the meantime, I had to make myself presentable without arousing suspicions that there might be a date going on. Having made sure to shower earlier in the day, I lightly applied some deodorant and combed out my hair. I put on a collared shirt in a neutral color, hiding the collar by tucking it under my jacket.

The rest was easy. I didn't want my pants to be too formal anyway, so I just kept on the ones I was wearing, which I considered reasonably attractive. Likewise, I had no intention of walking all the way to Haruhi's in fancy shoes, so my sneakers would do just fine.

On the walk over, I was surprised at how little dread I felt. The thought of being stuck as Haruhi's boyfriend for perpetuity was still horrifying, of course, but this individual date was really just one more SOS Brigade activity to be endured.

I knocked on the door of Haruhi's place. I didn't have long to wait; in a matter of seconds Haruhi herself swung the door open and barked, "Finally! What took you so long?"

Ordinarily I would have pointed out that our date had been arranged for 7:00 and that it was still 6:47. But horrible cliché though it may be, I was struck speechless by her appearance.

In my defense, it was not just the fact that Haruhi looked absolutely gorgeous in the strapless red gown she was wearing that stunned me. (Not to mention the flower perfectly set in her hair, which was done in a ponytail.) After all, we'd been friends for six months, and however much I might wish otherwise, her physical beauty was impossible to overlook no matter what she was wearing. I mean, yes, it was a bit startling to see her looking _this_ lovely. But what had really silenced me was the fact that she'd made the effort to look this way. It made me feel very underdressed. More to the point, while making oneself look nice was part of the dating game, I couldn't help but fear there was more to it than that. I could hear Nagato's words echoing in my head: _Haruhi Suzumiya will not break up with you._

Haruhi didn't fail to notice that I was staring at her, and an arrogant smirk came over her face before she could hide it. That at least cooled me down a bit; no matter what she looked like, no one with Haruhi's personality could attract me. She recovered: "Well, I'm glad you're here, at any rate. Did you bring me anything?"

"Of course not."

"What do you mean, 'of course not'?" she scowled. "Don't you know how dating works?"

"I think so, but no one ever informed me that gift-giving was a requirement."

"Minimal effort from you as usual..." she sighed, shaking her head. This lowered her gaze to the point where she noticed... "You're wearing sneakers! Are you stupid?"

 _I think I must be, to be on a date with you._

"Get in here before someone sees you!" She seized the front of my shirt and jerked me inside. Before I could protest, she had slammed the door behind me. "Don't move from that spot until I get back!"

She dashed into another room, leaving me standing there, sweating bullets over the thought that at any moment another member of her family might walk in.

Fortunately, Haruhi was back in under twenty seconds, bearing a pair of formal shoes. "These will do for tonight," she said, throwing them on the floor in front of me. "Well, don't just stand there! Put them on!"

I obediently sat down, removed my sneakers, and put on the borrowed shoes while Haruhi watched, muttering her impatience. I didn't ask whose they were; I figured whatever the answer was, I wouldn't like it.

"Got them on? Then let's go!"

 _Do you have to act like a drill sergeant even when you're on a date?_

Haruhi gave me a look like she wished she had a retort for my unspoken comment, but didn't. Instead, she slipped her arm around mine (something I was definitely not comfortable with, but could hardly object to) and allowed me to lead us on to the place where we were having dinner.

* * *

"You have got to be kidding me."

"You said wherever I wanted to go was fine," I reminded her.

"You really are completely stupid!"

"You wanted to go out with me, so what does that say about you?"

"It says that I'm too generous with my pity dates!"

 _Come on, Haruhi._ _Y_ _ou can come up with a better lie than that._ "Pity isn't even in your repertoire of emotions."

"You'd better pick a different place to eat fast, or there's not going to be a third date."

 _That would be a relief. In fact, making you more disposed to break up with me was half the reason I brought us here. The other half is that I_ _s_ _pend too much money on you as it is, thanks to your various "penalties"._

I held open the front door of the Taco Bell for Haruhi. "Come on, give it a try," I said, faking an affectionate smile.

She folded her arms. "I am not going to get taco juices all over this dress!"

"So order a salad."

For a moment there, I really thought I had her. Sure, she could put her foot down and drag me off to some high-priced establishment; I had no illusions about my ability to stop Haruhi from getting what she wanted. But then that altercation would put a dark cloud over our date. Either way, it would be one step closer to a breakup.

But then she smiled. One of her perfect smiles. "I have a better idea," she said.

* * *

I should have known better than to think, even for a second, that I could achieve any sort of victory over Haruhi Suzumiya.

For whatever reason, Haruhi had allowed me the choice of dining establishment, and would not take that choice away from me. Haruhi was also determined not to get a mess on her dazzling dress. Moreover, it was Haruhi's prerogative to regard everyone else, and me in particular, as her personal servant.

Ergo. Haruhi sat at our table in Taco Bell, hands planted in her lap, head extended over the table, jaws chomping as I hand-fed her a taco. My other hand held a napkin at the ready to wipe away any grease or sauce that started to dribble down her jaw; Haruhi had told me that if even one drop got on her dress, she would tell every girl she knew where I had taken her for our date.

If there has ever been a more humiliating moment in my life, I must have repressed all memory of it. The staff and other patrons kept pointing at us, giggling and cooing with adoration as if this was the cutest romantic moment they'd seen since Lady and the Tramp shared a piece of spaghetti. Incidentally, I was five years old when I saw that film, and even then that scene made me want to vomit. Besides, Mr. Burns and Mr. Smithers would be a far more apt analogy.

Some jerk even stopped to take photos of us with his phone. It was hard to imagine how this could have gotten any worse. Staring at Haruhi's beautiful face with its perfect smile of triumph as she savored both her taco and my degrading myself in her service, I muttered aloud, "I hate you."

Haruhi paid no heed to this comment. She just kept happily chomping.

As she neared the end of the taco, I felt a sharp pain in my index finger. I yelped and clutched my throbbing hand.

"Hey!" Haruhi cried. "Careful with that taco!"

Contrary to this warning, the taco had landed securely on my side of the table, with not a microbe of sauce anywhere near her dress. I glared at her. "You bit me!"

"You need to be careful where you put your fingers," she remonstrated.

"You _bit_ me!"

"Don't be a crybaby. It's not like I did it on purpose."

"You expect me to take your word for that?"

"Ugh, how ridiculous. If I wanted to hurt you, I'd find a way that didn't involve your germ-covered fingers being in my mouth. Now stop whining and give me the last bite."

"Of which one? The taco, or my finger?"

For a second she continued to stare at me with irritation and impatience. Then, to my astonishment, her face cracked into a grin. And then the trace of a chuckle came out of her mouth.

"Don't laugh at me," I growled.

"Hmm," she said, still grinning. "If you're going to hold a grudge, I guess we'll have to settle this." She reached across the table and held her hand limply in front of my face. "Bite one of my fingers, however hard you like. Then we'll be even."

I averted my eyes from her hand. "Don't be disgusting."

She casually slapped the side of my face with the proffered hand.

"What is wrong with you?!" I demanded.

"I'm still hungry. Taco, now." She held her mouth open.

I sighed, picked up the remains of the taco, and gingerly dropped it in her mouth.

As soon as my fingers were clear, she munched it down. Swallowing, she grinned at me. "See? I didn't bite you."

I nodded, and by this time my anger had faded enough that I could manage a trace of a smile in return.

"Well, don't just sit there," she said. "You've got two more to go."

I sighed, unwrapped the next taco, picked up a fresh napkin, and got back to work.

* * *

Naturally I couldn't feed Haruhi and myself at the same time, and naturally Haruhi had no intention of waiting while I had my dinner, so I ate my tacos on the walk to the cinemas. I'm sure we looked like quite the pair: the elegantly dressed beauty with the taco-munching slob.

We hadn't picked a movie to see ahead of time, so we studied the marquee for a few moments.

"How about _Edge of Chaos_?" I suggested. The nice thing about a movie was that you didn't have to talk with your date while you watched, and I'd been eagerly looking forward to _Edge of Chaos_. I saw no reason why Haruhi wouldn't want to see it as well.

But she frowned. "The only suitable film playing is _Nothing Like You_. Get us tickets."

"But that's a romance film. You hate romance films."

"That's not the point." She walked towards the concession stand.

"Incidentally, I hate romance films too."

"Not the point!"

Her tone did not suggest the matter was open for discussion. I walked towards the ticket sales booth, muttering, "I suppose 'the point' is for both of us to be as miserable as possible."

* * *

The film was not as much of an ordeal to watch as I'd feared. It was worse. It is hard to imagine a more contrived, spoon-fed romance or more sappy, phony-sounding dialogue than that which Haruhi and I saw unravel on the big screen before us. I checked my watch at least a dozen times, and I almost compulsively dug into the extra large popcorn Haruhi had purchased, simply because even the taste of factory-produced liquid butter was more mentally stimulating than the movie.

To make it worse, Haruhi insisted on holding my hand through much of the film, squeezing it lightly during a couple of the mushier parts. When she loosened her grip for a minute I actually managed to discretely slip my hand free and move it from the armrest into my lap, but as soon as the urge struck her again, she reached over the armrest and seized it again. At least here, no one could see what we were doing. Then again, given the choice between being seen holding Haruhi's hand and being seen wiping her jaw clean while hand-feeding her, I would have much preferred the former, so I had every reason to be discontent with whoever was pulling the strings in my life.

Since the movie was too dull to keep my attention, now and then I idly looked around. On one of these occasions I saw Haruhi looking at me. Thankfully, she didn't look amorous. In fact, she looked bored. And I don't just mean bored with the film.

I didn't know what to say, so I just stared back into her eyes, looking for some clue of what she was thinking. She didn't turn away from my gaze; she seemed to be looking for something herself.

I think both of us came up empty. I said, "Haruhi...?", and she turned away, looking back at the movie screen.

"It's nothing," she said, in a voice devoid of emotion. A moment or two later, she released her grip on my hand, and did not reach for it again.

Her melancholy mood remained as we left the theater and I walked her home.

I never knew what to say when she was like this. Usually, I felt like it was probably better to say nothing at all anyway.

Of course, if that were true, then that meant that I should say something in this case. I did want her to break up with me, after all. I tried to think of the wrong thing to say.

 _Got it._ "Are you mad at me for some reason?"

She turned to look at me, opened her mouth to say something, and then shut it again. Looking back at the road, she said, "You never thanked me for buying the popcorn."

 _Hmm. Not exactly paydirt, but maybe I can work with it._ "Well, I'm the one who paid for the tickets."

She snorted. "Nobody could be thankful for a ticket to _that_ movie."

I should have pointed out that she's the one who insisted on seeing it. But after the agony I went through in that theater, it was such a relief to hear someone share my opinion of the movie that instead I chuckled and said, "Well, that's true."

"It was _so_ stupid! If she wouldn't stay with him because she thinks she'd be like a bird in a gilded cage, then why did she decide to be with him forever just because he shows up at her door with flowers?!"

"No kidding. And what was the point of suddenly revealing the two of them met and had a romantic moment when they were both, like, ten? To make the movie appeal to pedophiles?"

"Probably. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left wondering how they could have been the same age as kids when he looks at least ten years older than her in the present!"

"I spent more time wondering how they found actors willing to say such stupid dialogue."

"I could have even forgiven that," she clenched a fist in front of her chest, as though crushing the film between her fingers, "...if the two of them weren't so ridiculously incompatible! There was no real communication between them! Even after she learned how to speak Japanese, she totally ignored or misinterpreted every thing he said! It was like she was only hearing what she wanted to hear! On top of that, she was always getting mad at him for no good reason and treating him like her personal slave, and he just did whatever she said because he had no backbone whatsoever! What kind of a basis is _that_ for a relationship?!"

 _...Does she really not realize that, apart from the speaking Japanese as a second language part, everything she just said is exactly true of the two of us?_

"It's true," I said, hoping she would get the hint without my putting any overt emphasis on my words. "People shouldn't even date, much less make long-term commitments to each other, if they don't know how to listen to each other."

She turned and looked at me. "...Yeah," she said. Her voice was suddenly so calm, so at ease, almost as though she'd just found an answer she needed. Her eyes upon me were earnest, purposeful. It made me very uncomfortable.

And then she kissed me.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5** : _In which Kyon and Haruhi discuss their first kiss, Haruhi debuts a new costume, and the SOS Brigade Band rehearses a new song_

Haruhi Suzumiya and I had shared a kiss once before, in the closed space where she took us so that she could destroy the world. And that one was pretty good, if I'm to be honest. Utterly mortifying in retrospect, but good at the moment in which it took place. If I were Taniguchi, I'd rate it a B minus.

Of course, on that occasion I was kissing Haruhi, and she was pretty much just standing there in shock. This time, she was kissing me. Haruhi Suzumiya excelled at many things: physics, baseball, ponytails, bug catching, chin-ups, pool hustling, costume selection, etc. Kissing was not one of them.

Our heights were too different for our lips to line up normally, and instead of pulling me down to her level, she opted to leap up at me, throwing her arms around my neck. Apparently no one ever told her that that only works in animated TV shows and movies. Her teeth cracked into mine, my nose was bashed by her forehead, and it's a miracle that I didn't lose my balance and break my skull on the asphalt. After all, we're talking about the guy who once got knocked over by a feather pillow.

Apparently her teeth weren't as rattled and searing with pain as mine were from the impact, because instead of letting go with a shriek of pain and clutching at her incisors, she locked her mouth over mine, effectively muffling my own shriek. As her lips rubbed against mine, our noses kept going into uncomfortable places, and she even attempted some tongue action.

That was probably the worst part. If there's someone you don't like, and you want to find out just how much they disgust you, try having them shove their tongue between your lips. I swear I could feel the bile rising in the back of my throat. If there had been any doubt before, there certainly was none now: I did _not_ want to be romantically involved with Haruhi Suzumiya in any way, shape, or form.

Unfortunately, from the look of things, I now was just that.

Haruhi (finally!) broke the kiss, but her head continued to face level into mine. It took me a second to realize that my hands were around her waist, apparently having instinctively grabbed hold to keep her from falling. I released her, and she landed neatly on her feet.

Beyond that, I could only stare at her in terror. This was really bad. Dating was bad enough, but this... I mean, it was still possible that what Koizumi said about her not being in touch with her feelings for me was true, but this certainly made it look very unlikely.

She looked up at me solemnly, her hands still around my neck. "I've never kissed a boy before," she said.

 _Oh really? Wow, I'd never have guessed. Totally shocking new twist._

Then she smiled. "So? What'd you think?"

 _What I think is I need to head to a drugstore and get a bottle of aspirin, a gallon of mouthwash, and some ipecac._

Anything more useful than sarcasm and snide wit was beyond my brain at the moment, so aloud I just said, "Ah..."

She released my neck and turned away, folding her arms. "I see."

"Ah... That is... I'm sure you'll get better with practice." _At the least, you couldn't get much worse._

"Out of curiosity... Who is it you've kissed that's better?"

I sighed. "It's not a matter of anyone else being better than you. Why do you have to have everything be a competition which you win?"

Actually, I was rather relieved to hear her talk that way. Maybe the kiss had had no emotional significance after all.

"So you'll help me practice kissing?" she said, ignoring my question.

I wondered if I could get away with an absolute "no". Probably not, but it was worth a try. Anything would be preferable to having Haruhi's tongue in my mouth again. "Can't you just practice with your hand?" I said.

She turned back around to face me, arms still folded. "You expect me, leader of the SOS Brigade, to degrade myself by making out with my own hand?"

"Well, either that or practice on someone else. My teeth are going to need a week or two to stop throbbing."

"Ugh, you're such a wimp." She resumed walking in the direction of her place, so I followed. "Maybe that's the problem. You're so soft, you can't handle a real woman's kiss."

"You're probably right," I answered, silently thanking Haruhi for the suggestion. "That's another good reason to practice on someone else."

"But then I'd have to date them, too."

"I suppose so."

"Well, forget it. I'm far too busy to date two people at the same time."

 _Is she serious?_ "Well, couldn't you just break up with me first?"

"Having a boyfriend is a serious matter! I'm not going to break up with someone just so I can practice kissing technique!"

 _Right. But you just hinted that you'd be willing to get a second boyfriend for that purpose if you weren't so busy. And you broke up with like a dozen guys who you didn't even date for a whole week. I wonder if anyone can understand what goes on in this girl's head?_

I looked up and realized we had reached our journey's end. She stopped at the entrance.

"Kyon," she said. "Were you joking when you suggested I break up with you?"

 _Why is she asking me that? Does she want me to say yes, because she thinks the thought of her breaking up with me should be unbearable, or does she want me to say no, because she doesn't want me to be possessive?_ "I'll tell you," I bargained, "if you tell me -"

"I asked first!"

 _Can't win with her._ "Of course I was joking."

"I see." She sounded bored again. "Well, what was your question?"

"Why did you kiss me?"

She turned her head towards me and raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that what people who are dating do?"

"I suppose so."

"Then why did you ask? Think before you open your mouth."

 _I guess I'm not going to get a much clearer answer than that. If that kiss meant as much as I feared it did, she'd be at least a little bit uncomfortable or even embarrassed about it._ I shrugged my shoulders and walked away. "Good night, Haruhi."

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

I hesitated. "Um... I had a really nice time tonight?"

She let out a raspy sigh of exasperation. "No, you fool. _The shoes I let you borrow._ "

I sat down to take them off while Haruhi got my sneakers.

* * *

I was last to arrive at the SOS Brigade clubroom the following afternoon. When I opened the door, Koizumi and Nagato were seated in their usual places, and Haruhi and Miss Asahina were standing, huddled over Haruhi's phone. Strangely, Miss Asahina was still in her school uniform. She looked more traumatized than usual, which is saying a lot.

Haruhi was eagerly swiping her finger over her phone's screen. Her voice bubbled with delight. "This one came out especially well, don't you think, Mikuru?"

"Y-Yes, Miss Suzumiya... It... it looks really... good..." Her eyes were riveted on the phone screen, but obviously for a very different reason than Haruhi's were.

"This one's not bad either! He looks really into it in this one!"

"Y-Yes... He really does..." Tears were starting to brim in Miss Asahina's eyes. She sniffed. "You b-both look... so happy..."

"I'd say at least three of these are worth uploading to the SOS Brigade website, don't you think?"

 _Uploading to the website?_ My mind flashed back to Haruhi's diabolical plan to upload scandalous photos of Mikuru to our club's website.

I strode towards Haruhi, Miss Asahina, and the suspicious phone. "Alright, what's going - Gyaaaahhh!"

I felt my heart convulse in my chest when I got a look at the phone screen.

There, in high resolution detail, were photos of me feeding Haruhi tacos on our date from the night before. Complete with subservient jaw-wiping action. (Plus one or two decent views of Haruhi's cleavage as she leaned across the restaurant table.)

For a split second I wondered how such photos could be on Haruhi's phone. Then I remembered. The jerk taking photos of us with his phone - it wasn't _his_ phone. While I was paying for the food, Haruhi must have been negotiating with him to take photos of us during our meal. While I was stuffing her face for her, she already had plans to post the whole thing online for the world to see!

"Give me that!" I snarled, grabbing for the phone. Haruhi jerked it out of my reach, but not quickly enough to prevent me from grabbing hold of her wrist.

"Kyon! What are you doing?" She struggled to break my grip, pulling with her ensnared hand while shoving off of my chest with her free one. "That's my phone!"

"I'm not going to let you have photos of me feeding you tacos, much less put them on our website!"

"What are you talking about? We'll get at least a hundred more hits if we post these!"

"Damn it, Haruhi, we've discussed this!" With one hand still holding firm to Haruhi's wrist, I snatched the phone out of her hand with the other one and held it up high, out of her reach. "You can't post humiliating photos of people on the internet!"

"Humiliating?!" she echoed, sounding both outraged and baffled. Then she folded her arms and closed her eyes in that imperious manner of hers. "Ugh, fine. I won't post them. Now give back my phone."

"Not until I've deleted all of these photos," I answered, lowering the phone to eye level so I could do just that.

Haruhi's foot slammed into my shin. I howled, dropping the phone so that I could clutch at the searing pain in my leg. Haruhi deftly caught the phone before it could hit the floor, and examined it. "Ah, good," she said. "All still there."

"What is _wrong_ with you?!" I bellowed.

Her eyes flashed with quivering fury. "What's wrong with _me_? You're the one who tried to take _my_ phone and delete _my_ photos!"

"I gave you no permission to take those photos! What could you want with them anyway, if you aren't going to put them on the internet?"

She turned her head away. "You're making too big a deal of this. I just wanted some photos of myself with my boyfriend. It's not as if I specifically wanted photos of you feeding someone tacos."

"Is that so?" I said, still nursing my leg and glaring at her. "So you've taken photos like these of all your boyfriends?"

"Of course."

Somehow, I couldn't quite believe that she'd photographed any of her other boyfriends in quite as humiliating a position as me. "Well, let's see them."

"You throw a tantrum when I show someone photos of you as my boyfriend, and now you want me to show _you_ photos of other people as my boyfriends?" She gave me a condescending look through half-lidded eyes. "How hypocritical. Anyway, I don't have those photos anymore. Whenever I break up with someone, I immediately delete any photos I have of them."

 _Then why bother having boyfriend photos taken at all? You're just going to delete them less than a week later._

"Enough wasting time with this! Now that everyone's here, it's time to get today's band rehearsal started!" I cursed myself when she said this, realizing I'd completely forgotten to argue against rehearsing in the clubroom at yesterday's meeting. "While Mikuru and I get changed, the rest of you pick up the amplifiers and drums from Takuma's place and get everything set up in the rock band clubroom!"

 _In the rock band...? Oh, I see. Haruhi came up with her own alternative suggestion for a rehearsal location._

"That will take quite some time," Koizumi pointed out. "We may not have enough time for a real rehearsal, especially if you mean for us to bring everything back to Takuma's afterwards."

Koizumi had a good point. If we were going to do this, we should have brought everything to the SOS Brigade clubroom yesterday, so all we'd have to do now is bring it upstairs and get started. Maybe Haruhi had been afraid it wouldn't leave her enough time to prepare for our date?

"I've already done the calculations," Haruhi said. "If you go now and we leave everything here afterwards, we'll have over an hour."

"Ah," Koizumi nodded. "I should have known our leader would have things well in hand." _If Koizumi's nose were any browner, I'd think he fell face-first in a mud puddle._

"Isn't the rock band clubroom being used by the school rock band?" I asked. "I mean, the _real_ school rock band? Er, I mean -"

"We _know_ what you mean!" Haruhi snapped. "Now stop asking pointless questions and get moving! Chop chop!" She emphasized this with two sharp claps of her hands.

* * *

The train ride to and from Takuma's place wasn't too long. Still, it was long enough to make one question why Haruhi didn't simply let us have one more day off from band rehearsal. Three train rides, endless lugging around of amplifiers and drums through the chill of early December, and the usual setting up and plugging in, all just so we could have one hour of practice.

That wasn't even factoring in the question of whether the rock band clubroom had been free during this hour, or Haruhi had called in a favor to kick ENOZ out.

It hadn't escaped my attention that Haruhi had said both she and Mikuru were getting changed. However, the difficult voyage back and forth between Takuma's place came first in my thoughts, and it wasn't a terribly surprising tidbit anyway. Sure, Haruhi had always showed up to band rehearsal without bothering to change out of her school uniform. But it only made sense that she would excuse herself from the duty of lugging the equipment over to the school by getting changed into casual clothes.

That's why it came as a bit of a shock when I entered the band clubroom, lugging an amplifier and one of Takuma's toms, and saw what Haruhi was wearing.

It was like what a designer of tacky kids' clothing might put out for a "rock and roller" dress-up ensemble if they were unconcerned with what parental groups might say. Skin-tight leggings - one of them pink, the other yellow - turned into fish nets an inch above her knees, an area mostly covered up by a purple skirt and baby blue underskirt, both of the heavily ruffled variety. The skirt was held up by a black leather belt which was studded with yellow stars and formed a "V" just prominent enough to highlight the fact that the outfit left her midriff uncovered, as if that fact needed highlighting. The top used the same bright yellow and pink material of her leggings and had a dainty bow in the center which sharply contrasted with the immodest size of her breasts. On her right arm she wore an arm stocking which was torn at the top and had a strap haphazardly wrapped around it four times, while her right arm was bedecked with bracelets, beads, and armlets. Her usual orange hair ribbon was supplemented with a blue one that had feathery tufts dangling on its ends. To complete the ensemble, she already had her electric guitar strapped on.

It was an eclectic patchwork of bad fashion... Yet somehow I really, really liked it.

"What are you staring at?" Haruhi demanded. As if she didn't know. "Set those things up! You've already been keeping Mikuru and me waiting for ages!"

The room was still loaded with ENOZ's equipment, but Haruhi and Mikuru had already cleared a sufficient space for us to play in. Takuma had come in behind me with his bass drum and hi-hat, so I followed him to a corner of the room where I set down the tom I'd been carrying. I then found what looked like a suitable spot to plop the amplifier down.

"Come on, hurry up and plug me in!"

While Takuma inexplicably sniggered at that, I came to the realization that it was indeed Haruhi's amp that I'd been lugging. It was easy to confuse hers and mine at a glance, since they were the same model, but she had painted the SOS Brigade logo on the side of hers.

Ordinarily I'd have told her to plug in her own instrument and got myself busy with setting up mine, but maybe the sight of her in that outfit had temporarily fried my brain cells. Whatever the reason, I just took the cord, plugged it into the amplifier, and brought the other end over to Haruhi. She tilted the body of her guitar towards me expectantly.

Actually inserting the plug into her guitar called for me to get uncomfortably close to Haruhi. Uncomfortable given what she was wearing, that is. Though I can't really say why; she exposed more skin in her bunny girl outfit, and the bathing suit she wore when we went to the public pool. All I could think was that this new costume was simply... right for Haruhi.

"Alright, now hurry up and get your bass set up! Move!"

"Yeah, yeah..." I said, and did as she ordered, which was of course what I would have been doing in the first place if she hadn't ordered me to get her plugged in.

"Hey, Suzumiya, what's with the get-up?" Takuma asked as he started screwing his drum kit together.

"Huh?" She was tuning her guitar. "Didn't you know? I'm designing stage costumes for everyone in the band. I'm working on Yuki's next. You and Kyon will get yours eventually."

"Hey, that's cool. Can I design my own? I've got this -"

"Don't be ridiculous," she interrupted. "We need a coherent group look, and that look is my vision. It's my band, after all."

At this point I had left the clubroom, so I didn't hear Takuma's response to that. I wasn't really interested, either. Haruhi's uncompromising attitude ensured that arguments during rehearsals were a matter of routine.

As I was getting my bass, Koizumi showed up to pick up the last of Takuma's cymbals. "I gather the date didn't go well," he said to me.

"What, because I was arguing with her over the photos?"

He shook his head. "Much worse than that. A new closed space manifested last night. That hasn't happened for quite a while."

"She seems fine today," I remarked. We started walking back to the clubroom together, the cymbal faintly vibrating as it tipped and swayed on its pole.

"Perhaps, but she was clearly upset yesterday. What exactly did you do?"

Why did he have to always lay the responsibility on me? "If anyone was subjected to a bad time on that date, it was me. The only thing I did wrong was let slip that she's a bad kisser."

There was an awkward pause in the conversation.

"Permit me to make absolutely sure I understand the situation," Koizumi said. "Are you saying that the two of you kissed on last night's date?"

"No, she kissed me. Not that it's any of your business."

He chuckled. "Believe me, there's nothing I would like better than to leave you two your privacy. However, Miss Suzumi's powers being what they are, I need to know everything that might affect her emotional state. Now, to review: She kissed you. And you made clear to her that you disliked it."

I hesitated. "I suppose it does sound pretty bad when you put it like that. But Haruhi clearly isn't in love with me, or at least isn't aware that she's in love with me. You said that yourself."

"Not being aware of her feelings doesn't keep her from feeling them. Please try to be more sensitive to her emotions going forward."

Sometimes Koizumi could really get on my nerves. "Stop making it sound like I ripped her heart in two. All I did was inadvertently knock her pride down a peg, which she could use by the way, and made her a little cranky for a night. As you can see, she's fine today."

"Perhaps not so fine as she seems." He gave me a significant look. "Have you stopped to ask why she was showing those photos to Miss Asahina?"

We had just reached the clubroom, and Koizumi went inside without waiting for an answer from me.

I sighed wearily and followed him in. Being Haruhi's boyfriend was such a tightrope walk. An inch in one direction and I'd break her heart, or so Koizumi and Miss Asahina would have me believe. An inch in the other, and I'd be stuck with her for the long haul.

In the clubroom, Nagato was patiently waiting with her fingers on her guitar's fretboard. You had to hand it to her; she must have carried over half of the stuff, including getting both her amplifier and mine in one go. Takuma had his drumsticks in hand and was glaring balefully at Haruhi while Koizumi set his last cymbal in place. Once finished, Koizumi playfully rang the cymbal with a slap of his hand, turning Takuma's glare from Haruhi to him.

Haruhi herself was at the ready in front of her microphone and music stand. As I set myself up next to her, I saw at a glance that as usual, Takuma had put the sheet with our modified version of Haruhi's latest song on the stand. Miss Asahina stood to my left, tambourine in hand, as bashfully indecent in her official band costume as ever. Time had not dissipated my anger at her decision to hide her feelings rather than go up against Haruhi. One look at her in that outfit Haruhi made her wear, though, and all was forgiven.

"Alright, let's see how well you've all learned to play 'Iridescent Moonrise'," Haruhi said. "Ready?"

She led things off by stroking out two lonely, reverberating chords. I looked at Takuma; that little bit wasn't on the sheets she handed out on Monday. He led off with a pounding roll of his drums and give me a nod for when I should come in.

Even with Miss Asahina present as a distraction, I felt myself completely take off this time. The bass line Takuma had come up with was simple enough that I could really hammer it. He seemed to enjoy that fact, putting up a more intensive, nuanced rhythm than usual. Nagato also performed superbly, as she always did.

It was Haruhi, though, who immediately captured one's eyes and ears. I don't know if it was this particular song, or some extra confidence boost she got from wearing that costume, but she sang with a fiery spirit that made her usual behavior seem tame by comparison. She wrestled every conceivable drop of emotion out of each note, each lyric, and the way she moved in that outfit, it was as if she was being herself in a way she never had before.

 _She's still technically my girlfriend, right? Maybe, if she got better at kissing, which she definitely could if I practiced with her like she suggested, it wouldn't be so bad to -_

 _No, no, shut up you shallow jerk! Stop thinking with your hormones! Haruhi is Haruhi, no matter what she looks like! Or sings like!_

Having my eyes temporarily locked on Haruhi, though, I noticed a change come over her. You see, she was actually glancing at her music stand as she performed. She did it so subtly, a casual observer would think every fiber of her being was focused on singing and playing. I myself had never noticed her doing it before; I had even considered that maybe the reason she never used the lyrics Takuma and I wrote was because she knew her own lyrics by heart, and so didn't bother reading the sheet, and so didn't even know we had written any. Of course she must have known her lyrics by heart, since the later verses were never written down, but I guess she looked at the sheet as a backup. But the more striking point at the moment was that as we neared the end of the first chorus, Haruhi's eyes froze on the sheet for a moment, and then her face contorted with anger.

She made it about halfway through the second verse, grinding out her lyrics (I didn't know what lyrics Takuma wrote, but he could never have come up with anything this good) through teeth that were clenched tight more often than not, while her eyes glared into the distance, as though whatever had brought about her rage was somewhere out there in the ether.

Then she exploded. "KYON!" In one smooth motion she grabbed the sheet from the music stand and kicked the stand over. "What's the meaning of this?!" she demanded, shoving the sheet in my face.

Without volition, my eyes scanned the writing on the sheet. "What are you talking a- GYAAAAHHHH!" I fell back, throwing an arm in front of my eyes to shield them from the horror they'd just seen.

I mentioned, didn't I, that I had to moderate Takuma's lyrical ideas whenever we wrote together? Well, apparently all of that was nothing compared to the obscenities he came up with when left to his own devices. Thankfully I read only a couple lines before I pulled myself out of harm's way, but I still saw descriptions of things being done to the female anatomy that I could not have conceived in the most foul depths of my subconscious. Believe me, until that moment I had no real idea what a sick bastard we had sitting in the drummer's seat.

"Do you think you have the license to write me objectifying sexist filth like this just because you're my boyfriend?!" As I continued to retreat, she seized me by my necktie and jerked my face up to hers, subjecting me to the terrifying wrath which burned in her eyes. I had to grab hold of my bass to keep it from banging against her guitar. "Or are you so brain-damaged that you thought this would turn me on?!"

"Takuma!" I yelped. "It was Takuma who wrote it! Not me!"

"Do you really expect me to swallow such a convenient lie?" To her credit, though, Haruhi did cast a glance back at Takuma. He was watching the two of us with a look of quiet puzzlement, the bastard. I doubted he could have foreseen that Haruhi would blame his obscene lyrics on me, but I was willing to bet he was enjoying this. At any rate, his act was enough to fool Haruhi.

"Do you really think I'd write something like that?!" I was starting to get a bit mad too, both at Takuma for writing such horrible things and for letting me take the fall for it, and at Haruhi for not believing me. "Usually we write those together, but this time I went home early and he did them on his own!"

Koizumi, meanwhile, had sidled up to us and taken a peek at the sheet, which was still in Haruhi's other hand. Mister Cool as always, he managed to read it with only a grimace as a reaction. Then he announced, "Miss Suzumiya, I believe he is telling the truth."

She asked, without taking her furious eyes off me, "What brought you to that conclusion?"

He bent down and picked up a couple of the scattered sheets that had fallen when Haruhi kicked over her music stand. "Look at the handwriting on the added lyrics to your other songs. It's clearly different from that used on 'Iridescent Moonrise'. The logical conclusion is that Kyon has been transcribing their lyrics, but with 'Iridescent Moonrise' Takuma was left to do it himself, as Kyon said."

As Koizumi held up the sheets so she could compare, uncertainty entered Haruhi's eyes, but she said, "Couldn't Yuki or Takuma have written the older ones, and Kyon written this one himself?"

Now I was really getting mad. "Then compare it to the handwriting on the papers in my bookbag, if you're that convinced I'm lying!"

"Good idea. Koizumi, open up his bookbag."

 _Good grief. That was a rhetorical suggestion. And she still isn't even letting go of my tie._

Koizumi shrugged and walked over to my bookbag.

Then Takuma burst out laughing. Haruhi looked over at him.

"Cuh - _rap_ , Suzumiya, when you get hold of an idea you just do _not_ let it go, no matter how rotten it turns out to be. I wrote the lyrics, okay? Kyon wasn't even in the room."

Haruhi stared at him a second longer. "Oh. Alright, then." She let go of my tie and proceeded to tear off the offending portion of the sheet and crumble it into a ball. "Okay, let's take that one from the top! But first, Kyon, that bass line was -"

"Hold it," I said. "You just chewed me out over those lyrics, which I didn't even write, and you're not the least bit mad at Takuma?"

"I don't expect any better from him," she answered, looking a bit annoyed at being cut off. "As I was saying, your bass -"

"But you assumed I was guilty right off." At this point, I was so angry that I felt like I could hardly speak.

"- bass line was way off. Now, watch... it goes like this..."

"Don't ignore me. You wouldn't believe me. You wouldn't believe me, after you told me you knew I'd never lie to you! You -"

Koizumi laid a hand on my shoulder and shook his head.

I stopped myself. He was probably right. On occasion, I had managed to talk Haruhi out of doing something wrong. But telling her when she'd done something wrong never worked out. She just became defensive. But oh, how I wanted to make her feel ashamed of herself.

"Who's ignoring who?" Haruhi snapped. "Look, put your fingers on the fretboard in the same place I've got them! Honestly, I don't know where you got the idea that that brain-dead riff you were playing was what I wanted for this song..."

I kept my comebacks for that inside my head and moved my fingers to the indicated position. But someone else wasn't willing to settle for that.

"Hey! Suzumiya!" Takuma whacked his cymbal to get her attention. "Lay off him, already! I wrote him that 'brain-dead riff' because he obviously can't play that over-complicated jazz you come up with!"

"Excuse me? _I'm_ the one who decides what Kyon can and can't play! This is _my_ band!"

"Then learn to write music that your band's members can actually play! Or hell, at least write _something_ for them to play, instead of giving us these stupid sheets with nothing but what you're singing and expecting us to magically know what you want us to play! We're sick of this, aren't we, Kyon?"

 _Oh, no. You leave me out of this._

"What are you even complaining about? I've shown you all how to play the songs, and you've learned how to play them correctly. If Kyon just starts practicing more, the SOS Brigade Band will be well on its way to being the best band in the world!"

"That's another bad decision you've made! What kind of a name for a band is 'the SOS Brigade Band'?"

"We need to spread the good name of the SOS Brigade," Haruhi said, folding her arms.

"What's that to me? I'm not even in your stupid club!"

"Stupid? You haven't even the slightest comprehension of the greatness that the SOS Brigade is poised to accomplish! Explain it to him, Kyon."

 _Again. Leave me out of this._

"Whatever. The name's not going to do your club any good if this band doesn't become famous. And we're never going to become famous if we have a name that people will laugh at!"

"Ugh, you're wasting your pitiful excuses for brain cells on this, Takuma. Just play your drums the way I tell you to, and leave the thinking to me."

Takuma laughed. "Reality check, Suzumiya. Kyon and me have been basically co-writing all of 'your' songs, and the fact that you veto 90% of what we write hasn't helped our music. Kyon's having a nervous breakdown trying to fake his way through your bass lines, I can't keep in sync with him because I don't know what he's doing, and your airy fairy lyrics, well... If it weren't for Nagato doing such great solos, we'd sound like complete crap. Like it or not, a band's a collaboration, so you're going to have to give the rest of us some input. Either that, or keep on sucking."

"That's enough." Haruhi suddenly sounded frighteningly calm. "You're out of the band."

Takuma blinked. "What?"

"I thought you were just tone deaf, not deaf deaf. I said you're out of the band."

I decided that maybe I would intervene after all. "Um, Haruhi..."

"I'm out of the band?" Takuma repeated. " _I'm_ out of the band? Tell me this, Suzumiya. Who do you think would rather be in a band with you than with me? I know Kyon's your boyfriend, but the dude has got to be sick of your throwing out his songwriting contributions and yelling at him all the time. Miss Asahina sure doesn't look happy about that outfit you make her wear. And Miss Nagato - hell, I have no idea _what_ she thinks, but it can't be 'Gee, I sure love playing in a band run by a total dictator.' So, let's put it up to a vote. Who would rather find themselves a different drummer and go on thanklessly slaving away under Suzumiya?"

"Haruhi, if you just let me use the bass line he came up with, I think he'll stop challenging your authority," I whispered to her.

"No, no, let him challenge my authority," she answered, not bothering to whisper. "Go on, everyone who's with me, raise your hands."

Nagato and Miss Asahina's hands immediately went up. Miss Asahina raised hers fiercely, with her eyes closed and her arm striving to reach out of its socket, plainly terrified of what Haruhi might do to her if she didn't raise her hand.

With an inward sigh, I raised my hand as well.

Takuma looked over the three of us in disbelief. "They're right about you weirdos. You're just an insular clan of frickin' nutjobs, de-"

Haruhi slammed out a power chord with a dramatic stroke of her hand, then held her guitar directly in front of her amplifier. I fell to my knees, clutching my ears as the screeching feedback penetrated my earplugs and ricocheted inside my skull. Takuma, Koizumi, and Miss Asahina all were similarly covering their ears and screaming in pain, while Nagato just stood and watched us with that same old blank expression on her face. After a couple of seconds she got the idea and dropped onto her knees, fists held awkwardly to the side of her head.

Takuma got the idea, too. "Okay, okay!" he shouted over the noise. "I'm leaving already! God!" He grabbed his cymbals and retreated from Haruhi's agonizing wall of sound.

Haruhi turned off the feedback and scowled after him. Miss Asahina made a faint uncomfortable noise in the back of her throat. Koizumi looked at me, smiled nervously, and rubbed a finger tenderly over his ear.

I stood up, folded my arms and said to Haruhi, "We now have no drummer and no place to rehearse because you wouldn't listen to reason. Even if we find replacements, he's still right about a band needing to be a collaboration. You realize that, don't you?"

She gave no sign that she'd heard a word I said. She just continued scowling.

Then she pointed a commanding finger. "Yuki, you're out of the band too!"

"Okay," Nagato said, and unstrapped her guitar.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6**_ : _In which Kyon again attempts to reason with Haruhi, Mikuru, and Koizumi, and gets pretty much nowhere, except on another date_

"What exactly are you trying to do?" I asked Haruhi while Nagato helped Takuma carry away the rest of his drum kit.

"What do you mean?"

"You just got rid of every member of the band except the one member you should have gotten rid of!"

Miss Asahina gave a little dismayed gasp.

 _Oh, right; I forgot that she's technically part of the band._ "I meant me," I clarified.

"I fully intend to kick you out too if you don't practice that bass more," Haruhi said, unplugging her guitar and wrapping up the cord. "As for Yuki and Takuma, we don't need them. Any guitarist or drummer will be fine, so long as we have my songs and my vocal talent."

 _Where did that modesty she showed when she was on stage with ENOZ go to? I'd like it back, please._ "Is that what this is about? You just want to prove Takuma wrong, to prove you don't need the rest of us?"

"It's about not letting my authority be questioned."

"But Nagato raised her hand for you!"

"Here." She handed me her amplifier to carry. "Anyway, it's a good time for a little break from band rehearsals. We need to focus on our dating more." _Oh, no._ "You're not doing anything Friday, right?"

"Uh, no..."

"Great! Then it's a date!" She walked away, humming a happy tune as she passed by Miss Asahina. The band's designated stage decoration cast her troubled eyes to the floor.

Koizumi was lugging away Nagato's amplifier, so Miss Asahina and I were left alone. Thank heaven for small favors, as well as for angels like Miss Asahina.

I walked over to her. She was shyly clutching her tambourine in front of her chest. "Miss Asahina," I began. "About those pictures Haruhi showed you..."

"Hmm? Oh, no!" She raised her eyes to meet mine. "You don't have to explain, dear Kyon! You falling in love with Miss Suzumiya... It's the best for everyone, don't you see?" Her eyes were now moistened with tears. "I... I just want you to be happy..."

And just like that, the same disgust I felt the day before was back in full force. "Don't tell me who I'm falling in love with," I said. "And if I _were_ in love with Haruhi, I wouldn't need your permission."

I picked Haruhi's amplifier back up and walked away. I didn't even care whether or not Miss Asahina finally figured out that she'd jumped to the wrong conclusion. My conscience was whispering to me that what I'd said to Miss Asahina wasn't nice, or even fair, but I'd said it and I still felt too bitter to turn around and take it back. I don't know why. For all my flirting with Miss Asahina, I'd never even considered asking her out. So what difference did it make that she was willing to let Haruhi have me? Maybe it was just male pride, wanting to be wanted by a woman.

* * *

Koizumi and I unloaded Haruhi's and my gear into the SOS Brigade clubroom. "Do you have any idea what she's up to?" I asked him. "Kicking Takuma out, I can understand - it's stupid, but according to Haruhi's warped rules it makes sense - but why Nagato?"

"Yes, why Nagato?" he echoed, setting down the amplifier. "I confess that took me by surprise as well, and I've been thinking about it since. Miss Nagato is so compliant, and so innocuous, that it seems impossible that Miss Suzumiya could have any reason for firing her specifically. It's an utterly senseless act if one wanted to keep the band going. It only makes sense if one does _not_ want to keep the band going."

"What are you saying? That Haruhi wants the band to break up, just to relieve her boredom?"

Koizumi tapped his chin. "An interesting thought, and not implausible. However, I had something a bit less dismal in mind."

"Out with it."

"I think I may have underestimated Miss Suzumiya's foresight. She doesn't desire the band to break up, but she anticipates it - and has anticipated it since before you became her boyfriend."

"This is already giving me a headache. What are you talking about?"

"The seeds of division were planted and watered some time ago. The clash between our leader's desire for complete control and Takuma's bold rebelliousness was irreconcilable - at least, in Miss Suzumiya's mind. She also realized that without a drummer, the band cannot exist. And even if there were a suitable replacement, she might expect the same problems would occur. As you may have noticed, she tends to give up on things when they become difficult. Thus, Miss Suzumiya felt certain the band would soon fail, and so considered the time ripe to start a new pursuit. Namely, dating you." He smiled. "It would replace the band as a diversion and, more importantly to her, as a way of spending one-on-one time with you, since once the band was gone you could be expected to call a halt to the bass tutoring."

I looked at Koizumi, not sure what to say.

He shrugged. "Well. It's only a theory."

"Is there any way we can change her mind?"

"Is that what you want? I was under the impression that you disliked having to play in the band."

"I do, but... It's just so stupid." I clenched my fist. "Forming a band was so important to her. And now she's just throwing it all away?"

Koizumi leaned forward, studying my clenched fist, then looking up to study my face. Too close for my taste. "If you want to turn things around," he said, "you'll have to talk to Miss Suzumiya yourself. You're the only one capable of convincing her of anything."

"Wonderful. Remember what happened the last time I encouraged her to carry on with one of her projects?"

"That's why I'm not enthusiastic about preventing the band's breakup myself. We don't need any more cherry blossoms out of season, talking cats, and massive property damage." He finally backed off.

* * *

At lunch break the following day, the last person on Earth I would have chosen to eat lunch with at that moment took a seat next to me.

"Hey, dude. Did you at least get some good anger sex out of that fit your girlfriend had yesterday?"

I averted my eyes from Takuma's chimp-face. "If I did, do you really think I'd tell you about it?"

"If _I_ had, I'd tell you."

 _I'll just bet you would. But that's a very big "if"._

"So, hey." He slapped the desk. "You've gotta talk some sense into Suzumiya."

"You mean get her to let you back into the band? Why would I do that?"

He rattled his knuckles along the top of the desk. I guess he was a drummer even without his kit. "Come on, dude. Are you still angry that I let you take the heat for those lyrics? I was just joking around. Even if Koizumi hadn't pointed out the handwriting, I would have said something before it went too far."

"I'm not angry that you let me take the heat for the lyrics. I'm disgusted that you wrote them in the first place." I proceeded to shovel food into my mouth.

"Hey, I didn't think Suzumiya was so uptight about that stuff."

"She's not uptight. Any girl would have reacted the same way. You're a disgusting pervert."

"What's the pot calling the kettle? I saw the way you were ogling Suzumiya and Asahina both during that rehearsal. And you really expect me to believe you joined the SOS Brigade because you like hunting extraterrestrials? Three girls in that club, and the least attractive one is still an 8."

 _You and Taniguchi should get together and coordinate your rating systems._

"The only difference between you and me," he continued, "...is that I have the guts to say what I'm thinking. Or write it, whichever."

 _Thank you. That statement will now haunt me for the rest of my life._ "I've never thought the things you wrote in those lyrics. Not in my most obscene dreams."

"That stuff doesn't matter, anyways. You don't have to like me to realize that the band needs me."

I hated to admit it, but he had a point there. Not that it made a difference.

I held up two fingers. "Two things. One, I'm not the biggest fan of the band. Two, hard as it may be for you to believe, Haruhi has her own mind. If she wants you out of the band, I can't make her take you back."

"You can at least give it a shot. Talk to her."

I unclenched my thumb, thus showing three fingers. "Come to think of it, there's a third thing. Even if Haruhi takes you back, that doesn't change anything. You'll butt heads over the same things, and she'll kick you out again."

"Hey, I'm willing to compromise. Just convince Suzumiya to meet me halfway."

"Four." I swapped my thumb for my ring and pinky fingers. "Four things. I'm sick of people treating me as Haruhi's spokesman. Talk to her yourself."

"I can't talk to that crazy bitch. You're her -"

"You've just made it five things." I got up, taking my lunch with me.

 _I can't believe I argued in favor of keeping this asshole in the band, even for a minute. We can find a replacement, like Haruhi said. And if we don't, who needs the band anyway? It'll just be one less SOS Brigade duty for me to worry about._

* * *

With the shakeup in the band the previous day, I expected the SOS Brigade meeting to either be a quiet one, or to concern itself with finding replacement members for the band. Neither proved to be true.

Haruhi was the last to arrive in the clubroom, but she arrived with a meeting agenda.

"Since the SOS Brigade Band must remain inactive until it acquires more members, this meeting will be devoted to improving the quality of the dating between Kyon and myself!" she announced.

 _Is this for real? Or is this like one of those dreams I have where Haruhi makes me walk all around the school in my underwear?_

"You can't use club time for your personal affairs!" I protested. "You even said having a boyfriend wasn't going to interfere with your duties as SOS Brigade leader!"

"Well, it isn't. First of all, we have nothing else we need to do today, do we?"

"We need to come up with a list of potential replacements for the band members we just lost!"

I fired that off without thinking, and a split second later it occurred to me that Nagato might be uncomfortable having people talk about replacing her while she was sitting right there. When I looked over at her, though, she hadn't lifted her gaze from her book. Maybe she was as relieved to be out of the band as I would be in her shoes. Or maybe she wanted to be in the band but didn't want to endanger her mission by questioning Haruhi's decision. Or maybe she didn't care either way. At the moment I was too concerned with my impending embarrassment to put much thought into reading Nagato's facial expression, or lack thereof.

"Second of all," Haruhi said, ignoring my rebuttal, "improving the quality of our dating will improve the standing of the SOS Brigade. If people see our club as a place that fosters romance, more people will want to join!"

 _As if our dating has anything to do with romance. And since when have you been concerned with increasing our club's pitiful roster?_

Before I could come up with another objection that might be safe to voice aloud, Haruhi went to the dry erase board, handed the marker to Miss Asahina, and said, "First order of business: Let's look at what went wrong on our most recent date."

 _Kill me. Please._

"First, attire. Are sneakers ever appropriate footwear for a date?"

Koizumi volunteered, "Certainly not, unless an athletic activity is planned."

 _Good for you. You answered a blatantly leading question._

Haruhi gave Miss Asahina a nod, and she compliantly wrote down "Inappropriate attire: Sneakers".

"Next, is it customary to bring a gift on a second date?"

Koizumi put a thoughtful hand to his jaw. _Aha, you're stumped on that one. She didn't say who brought or didn't bring a gift, so you have no way of knowing which answer_ _she wants_ _!_

But I underestimated him. "What... sort of gift are we talking about?"

"You know," Haruhi waved her hand impatiently. "A nice corsage to go with the girl's dress, maybe some flowers..."

 _How was I supposed to know you would even wear a dress, much less what sort of corsage would go with it?_

"And on a second date? I'd say gifts are optional."

I felt a moment of gratitude to Koizumi for giving me some slack, before Haruhi said, "Optional. So Kyon could have brought a gift, but he took the route of least effort. Write it down, Mikuru."

As Miss Asahina wrote, I argued, "Couldn't you have also brought _me_ a gift?"

"A girl's gift to her date is to make herself stunningly beautiful for him. Did I give anything less than my best in that regard?"

"Well, no..." I answered, rubbing the back of my head. I could have rebutted that if appearance qualified as a gift, then the guy's appearance should also qualify as his gift, but between the sneakers and the casual pants I don't think I had a leg to stand on there.

"Then admit you made a mistake and let's move on."

Miss Asahina, having finished writing "No gift," turned to me and asked, "S-so you think Miss Suzumiya... looked really b-beautiful on your date?"

For a moment I felt caught, but Haruhi herself saved me this time. "What are you asking that for? I already showed you the photos! Next item: choice of dining establishment. I entrusted this point to Kyon..."

I sighed, "Yes, yes, I took you to Taco Bell, and you promised you wouldn't tell anyone about it, yet you took photos and were going to post them on our website, and here you are holding a meeting on the subject."

"Don't interrupt. Mikuru, have you got that?"

"Y-yes!" she said, and hurriedly wrote down the next item on the list: "Inappropriate restaurant: Taco Bell."

"Will you at least explain the point of all this?" I said.

"So slow on the uptake." Haruhi wagged a finger. "We need to look at what went wrong on previous dates so we can make improvements for subsequent dates."

"But all you're doing is making a list of what you think I did wrong!"

"Are you actually blaming _me_ for the fact that you do so many things wrong? That you're a complete screw-up romantically speaking?"

It was true; I had done a multitude of things wrong on that date. Deliberately. But I couldn't let Haruhi know that, and besides, "complete screw-up" was taking it too far.

"Aren't you jumping to conclusions? Maybe I just didn't have my 'A' game on that one night."

"As tempting as it might be to think so, our first date wasn't a smashing success either. The simple fact is that you've been a total klutz at romance for as long as I've known you! You remember when we were at a café and you tried to impress me with that stupid story about Mikuru, Yuki, and Koizumi being a time traveler, an alien, and an esper?"

 _Oy. This just keeps getting more embarrassing._ I hadn't told the others about how I unsuccessfully attempted to blow their secrets. Miss Asahina began trembling at this revelation. Though frozen with fear now, I risked darting my eyes in Koizumi's direction. He looked amused. I supposed that _could_ be a good sign.

"You're right to be embarrassed at that maneuver," Haruhi said. "And that's not even the worst part. After I stormed out, I snuck a glance back - and you were still sitting there at our table like a doofus!"

"Well, what was I _supposed_ to do?"

Haruhi did a facepalm.

Miss Asahina shook her head sadly. "Oh, Kyon. Don't you know that when a girl storms out on a date with you, you're supposed to go after her?"

 _Oh. Well, of course, I know that. But in that instance, I wasn't actually_ on _a date with Haruhi, or even thinking about her romantically in any way. Should I say that, or would that only make Haruhi get more defensive?_

The marker once again squeaked against the dry erase board. "Didn't go after -"

"Don't write that down, stupid!" Haruhi snapped. She grabbed the eraser and wiped away the latest entry. "At the time, I thought I must have misread the signals, and you weren't interested me in _that_ way. But then you told me about how you were intimidated by my policy against dating normal humans. After that, I finally realized that you were just clueless." She spun on me. "Just a total romantic klutz, with little hope of getting a girlfriend by his own devices, and none of keeping her without some sort of expert help and coaching."

I let my forehead fall onto the table and shut my eyes. Short of inviting a few more friends and classmates into the clubroom, there was no way this could get any more humiliating. I couldn't even dispute Haruhi's points, because everything she said was technically correct. Maybe she was even _right_. I hadn't even made an effort when it came to Haruhi, but it wasn't as though I'd had loads of success with the other girls in my life.

An odd silence pervaded the clubroom for a moment. It was broken by Haruhi saying, in a tone of voice radically different from the one she'd just been using, "That is... unless you were telling me that lie about Mikuru, Koizumi, and Yuki in order to make me feel better, as a friend? Not as a courtship gesture?"

I lifted my head. Haruhi was looking at me with what I could only identify as concern - like a boy who, having been fighting with his brother, realizes that his last blow knocked him senseless.

"Yes," I said, grateful for the escape route she'd extended. "That's it, exactly. You'd seemed so bored lately, it made me worried about you."

"I see..." Now she was looking away from me, as if mildly embarrassed, and I belatedly realized that due to my gratitude and relief, my answer came out sounding more sincere than it actually was. "Very well! Let all comments to the extent that Kyon is romantically inept be stricken from the meeting record!"

 _A meaningless gesture, since we don't keep a meeting record..._

"However!" She rapped a knuckle on the dry erase board. "These points still should be improved upon. Therefore, I have taken charge of determining the location for our next date. We will be..."

Haruhi kept talking, but I wasn't listening. I was coming to the realization of just what an idiot I was. Here we were, going over the reasons I made a horrible boyfriend for Haruhi, and instead of playing that up so that she would finally end this ridiculous relationship, I was actually _defending_ my romantic standing. Haruhi had just given me an 'out' on a silver platter, and I'd hurled it right back at her.

Like I said before, I had been making myself an easy target for misfortune this past month.

"Wait!" I said, frantically grasping at the chance that I had allowed to slip away. "Wait. Maybe you're right, Haruhi. Maybe I _am_ the problem."

"Huh?"

A flash of inspiration hit me. To convince Haruhi, I'd need to speak her language. "The important thing isn't to improve my dating skills; it's to improve your dates. After all, you're the leader of the SOS Brigade." Her mouth twitched thoughtfully. I allowed myself a smile, confident I'd played her right. "There's a much simpler way of improving your dates. Get a different boyfriend, one more practiced at romance."

"Idiot!"

I blinked. "What?"

"Idiot, idiot, idiot!" She beaned the eraser off my forehead. "You think I'm dating you solely for my own personal gratification?! I told you at the beginning of the meeting, we need to advance the impression that the SOS Brigade is a place that fosters romance!"

 _Of all the times for her to be consistent about the things she says._

"And there were other considerations behind my choosing you. For example, you hadn't been on any dates in high school before I decided to take you on."

 _Excuse me, but neither had you._

"I finally saw it was up to me to get your feet in the dating pool. Naturally, if it were strictly a matter of my own happiness, you wouldn't have been my first choice."

 _Oh, I agree. But try telling that to Koizumi or Miss Asahina._

"I would want someone smart... enthusiastic... generally exceptional..." She had a hand to her jaw, tapping her cheek with one finger. She really seemed to be seriously considering the idea. "Someone with real purpose in life. And an alien, of course. Maybe the last of his species."

"What about looks?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Must you be so shallow?"

"Well, up to now what you've described sounds more like what you'd want for the SOS Brigade's next recruit."

"Hmmph. I'd want him to be a lot more romantic than you. That's a given. Looks aren't important... but if you insist, I guess I wouldn't mind if he were missing a finger."

 _Good grief. Please tell me she really means "I wouldn't mind", and not that that's something she sees as desirable._

"Anyway, this is all hypothetical!" she burst out, snapping back to commander mode. "You are my boyfriend, and for the sake of the SOS Brigade, that must not change! Therefore, it is your duty to improve your dating performance! In addition to the points we've already discussed, you are to show better enthusiasm and thoughtfulness. Understood?"

"Yeah."

"Good. That concludes today's meeting. There will be no meeting tomorrow, so that Kyon will have no excuse for being less than fully prepared for our date." She turned to pat Miss Asahina on the shoulder. "Good note-taking today, Mikuru!"

"Th-thank you!"

Haruhi walked out, closing the door behind her. I was hoping to escape after her, but as soon as she was gone, Koizumi said to me, "Well, I think we can agree now that Miss Suzumiya was indeed upset by your comments on your previous date."

I cocked an eyebrow at him. "She seemed like her normal level of crazy to me."

"But noticeably above her normal level of angry. I suspect that if all were well, she would have kept the details of your date private."

"Um..." Miss Asahina said. "But Miss Suzumiya is very often insensitive to Kyon's feelings..."

"I think she would have wanted the details to remain private for her own sake."

"So," I ventured. "You guys aren't mad at me for telling Haruhi your secrets?"

"Not really," Miss Asahina smiled. "I know you meant well."

Nagato just kept on reading, as if the question had nothing to do with her. I couldn't help but suspect, though, that somewhere underneath that crystalline exterior was lurking the thought "I told you so." During our first conversation about her alien nature she had told me, with the same certainty she would have used to tell me that I'll fall if I jump off a roof, that Haruhi would not believe me if I told her she was an alien.

"I advised against it for good reason, but clearly, there's been no harm done," Koizumi shrugged. "I'm more upset that you outright suggested to Miss Suzumiya that she find another boyfriend. When I told you to let Miss Suzumiya be the one to end your relationship, I didn't mean you should actively encourage her to end it." He forced out a light chuckle. "At least not as unsubtly as that."

"I don't care to wait for weeks on end for Haruhi to break up with me. Besides, what's the big deal?"

"The big deal is that you seem to be awakening romantic feelings in Miss Suzumiya. Each time you reject her, by suggesting she get a different boyfriend or criticizing her kissing -"

"K-k-kissing?!" Miss Asahina gasped.

"- it causes her emotional pain, and makes her more likely to start questioning why she feels such pain. You have caused her this sort of pain before, but now that you two are operating in the context of a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, there is a greater risk that Miss Suzumiya will interpret her previously undefined feelings for you as romantic love. Having made you her boyfriend as a pretext to satisfy platonic feelings, she may come to claim you as her boyfriend for real."

 _Have I mentioned what a tightrope walk it is dating Haruhi Suzumiya?_

I wearily rested my head in my hand. "Alright, I'll stop dropping hints for her to get a different boyfriend."

"I'm afraid that at this point that's no longer good enough. Thanks to your blunt suggestion during the meeting, she already knows you want her to break up with you. The only solution is to convince her otherwise, by following the suggestions she made in the meeting, and going the extra mile to make it seem you genuinely enjoy dating her."

"You can't be serious. That will just prolong our relationship!"

"It is either that, or allow Miss Suzumiya's emotional state to remain dangerously unstable, and potentially lead her to decide she is in love with you."

"I agree," Miss Asahina spoke up. "You have to stay on Miss Suzumiya's good side. B-b-besides, you have to give it a chance... to see if maybe you like her too..."

 _Good grief._ "So I have to buy Haruhi a gift for tomorrow's date, on top of the bill for the restaurant she's chosen, which I'm sure will be very expensive. Do you all think I'm made of money?"

"I'll buy the gift and bring it to you," Koizumi said. "I'm not sure I trust you to pick something Miss Suzumiya will be pleased with, and this is not a good time to be taking unnecessary chances."

"Suppose I think you're both overreacting. Suppose I think Haruhi still looks at our dating as just one more SOS Brigade activity, and that there's no risk of that changing?"

"Then why is closed space opening up?"

 _...Dammit._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7** : _In which Kyon tries to improve his dating skills, and_ _encounters some competition_

Naturally, at this point I had to tell my family that my outing with Haruhi was a date. There was no keeping it a secret for much longer, especially since I needed to meet Haruhi's dress code this time. As expected, there was much excitement over this revelation. My mother spent an inordinate amount of time straightening up my appearance, while my sister bounded around, cheering the fact that her brother was dating her favorite of his friends. Between them, Koizumi, Miss Asahina, Kunikada, and Haruhi herself, it was starting to feel like everyone wanted me to be Haruhi's boyfriend except me.

I headed out, thinking Koizumi must have forgotten about his promise to me, but two blocks from my home a car pulled up with him inside. "We can't risk your family witnessing this transaction," he explained. "It would look suspicious." He handed me a bouquet of flowers. "I think it's safest to stick with the conventional for now."

This time Haruhi was wearing a dark blue dress with a long skirt. I didn't like it as much as the one she wore on her last date, but I didn't say that. I was starting to wonder just how many fancy dresses she had, but I didn't say that, either. I was also disappointed that she didn't have her hair in a ponytail this time, but nope, didn't say that. I just said she looked lovely and handed her the flowers.

She looked at them with disinterest. "I suppose I'll have to put these in water."

Well, Koizumi had footed the bill, so it was no skin off my nose if she wasn't enthralled with them. I stood around while she got a vase and filled it, trying to ignore the nagging fear that one of her parents might walk in and subject me to scrutiny.

"You look a lot better than you did on our last date," she said as she stuck the flowers in the vase. The compliment could not have sounded any more perfunctory. I wondered if there was something I was supposed to have done but didn't, or something I shouldn't have done but did, but I couldn't think of anything.

We got out of the house without encountering her parents. I cast a glance at her face; she looked pensive and dissatisfied. Not an unusual look for her, and at least she didn't seem to be angry, but all the same it seemed an ominous note on which to start the date. I tried to think of something that might fix it.

Maybe if I apologized for suggesting she get a different boyfriend?

...No. Lying, except by omission, was abhorrent to me in general. And lying to Haruhi especially. She spent so much of her life being told pleasant lies by Koizumi, Miss Asahina, and herself, that someone needed to give her the cold hard truth on a consistent basis. To even contemplate lying to her, I must have been really worried by Koizumi's warnings.

Maybe I could just try talking to her normally, as if we were in homeroom. "Haruhi," I said.

"What?"

"You look as though something's bothering you."

She looked at me and opened her mouth to say something.

Then she closed it and looked away. "It's nothing. I'm just -" She shook her head. "It's nothing."

Uh oh. Even I knew that when you ask a girl what's wrong, and she says "It's nothing," that's a bad sign.

But if she wouldn't tell me what was wrong, there was really nothing I could say, was there?

Haruhi's choice of restaurant turned out to be Ryohei's. I would have been relieved that she'd picked someplace reasonable, but the line for a table went all the way out the door.

I sighed. "It looks as though we'll have to go someplace else."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'll go talk to them. Wait here."

I wanted to protest, but she was gone before I could come up with a coherent argument. It probably would have been wasted breath, anyway. Better to just wait for the chaos to begin and then, if necessary, drag her out of there.

A couple of minutes later, Haruhi strode out of the restaurant and grabbed me by the arm. "Come on," she said. "They've got a table for us."

I stumbled along after her, to where two wait staff were hurriedly wiping a table clean. We took our seats, Haruhi like a queen taking up her throne, me like a fugitive taking a place at table at a policemen's convention. A waiter took our drink orders with a smile and a bow.

Once he was gone, I said to Haruhi, "What did you coerce them with?"

"What are you talking about?" She frowned. "I just explained the situation to them, and they got us a table."

I knew Haruhi could be disingenuous about these things, so I pressed: "Exactly what situation is that?"

"Look, I told them I was on a date with my boyfriend, that it was important that we have dinner here, and that we had other plans for the evening so we couldn't wait too long. They gave us a table. There's nothing difficult about this."

I keep forgetting that Haruhi can be very charming when she wants to be. Too bad she never feels the need to put on the charm with me. I could get used to a Haruhi who smiles adorably and bows all the time and doesn't force me to go along with whatever deranged idea pops into her head at any given moment.

"Well," I tried, "...it's good to have a table without having to go somewhere else. Thanks."

"That's nothing to thank me for. I told you, all I did was explain the situation. You might thank me for something more meaningful."

"You mean, like your picking a restaurant that won't leave me broke?"

The despising half-lidded look she gave me was enough to tell me I'd guessed wrong. "Forget it."

The fact that she _still_ sounded more bored than anything else somehow made it worse than her usual anger. I buried my face in the menu. There were a fair number of interesting dishes, plus a reassuring selection of familiar stuff, so I was able to kill a few minutes taking a real good look over the options.

Once they brought us our drinks, I eagerly turned to sipping mine to delay the awkwardness of talking to Haruhi in her current mood.

She took a sip of hers, then looked up and said in a quiet, thoughtful tone, "My parents used to take me here. It was where they had their first date. They said that maybe one day I'd come here with my own future husband."

 _Good grief._ _C_ _ould the implications of that comment be any scarier?_ "I thought you weren't interested in things like marriage."

"I'm not. Marriage is completely unbearable unless you're in love with your spouse, and love is ridiculous. Just a means of encouraging procreation that somehow got incredibly overrated."

 _I think we have a contender for most inappropriate thing ever said on a date._

Haruhi folded her arms. "Well, _you_ brought it up. I was just talking about how I used to go here."

"Okay. Go on."

"I used to play with my straw - sucking on it so that the liquid would go up into the straw but not all the way to my mouth. Making the level go up and down, pretending that it was a thermometer and I was god of the weather. I could make the fluid go to any level I wanted, and hold it there. It amazed me that I could control the air pressure with that much precision." Her face turned to a hollow stare into the distance, like a woman who had been walking through a desert for weeks and was looking at the seemingly infinite expanse of barrenness still before her. "But I guess that's an experience pretty much everyone's had, isn't it?"

"I really don't think it is."

"Hmm. Maybe. If I'm really lucky, maybe I'm one of only two or three thousand people who have done the same thing." She let out a puff of breath. "It was so frustrating, having to wait all those years before I could take physics and find out about air pressure."

"Couldn't you have just looked it up at the library?"

"Yeah, but that would have been like watching a movie at home instead of in theaters. Back then, I thought teachers were all like wonderful live performers, doing magic tricks and then revealing how they worked. I wanted to learn about it that way."

She was sounding a little better. If she was still bored, at least she didn't sound _terminally_ bored.

"Show me you really can do that," I said. "With the straw."

" _Anyone_ can do it," she huffed. "Just try it yourself if you don't believe me."

Well, why not? I took my straw and started sucking. It went right up to my throat, and I almost choked on it.

"Not so hard!" Haruhi remonstrated me while I was gasping and coughing. "You need to just sip lightly on it! Like you're coaxing it to get up on its feet!"

Haruhi's loud instructions were already drawing attention to us, and it didn't sound like she was going to let me quit. I resigned myself to what followed: Sipping gently, fearfully on the straw and getting nowhere, the liquid staying obstinately in the bottom of the glass, Haruhi bellowing at me to sip harder, until the drink suddenly shot up to the back of my throat again.

We eventually got our meals, at which point Haruhi finally allowed me to quit my futile attempts. "I really didn't think there was anyone in the world who couldn't do that," she said with disgust.

"You still haven't proven that anyone in the world _can_ do that," I shot back.

Without breaking eye contact with me, she took her straw in her mouth and made her drink rise up to a centimeter shy of her lips, drop down to a centimeter from the bottom, and finally rise up to the middle of the straw, holding it for a few seconds in each position. Then she flipped the straw out of her drink, pointing it upwards, and made the bit of liquid inside it go up and down a few times, as if she were a circus seal bouncing a ball. Then she returned the straw to the glass and sipped normally, her expression still unchanged.

"Show off."

"You can only be a show off if you're doing something impressive," she retorted. "This is kids' stuff."

Our discussion remained on such meaningless, trivial subjects through dinner. I contemplated talking to her about the band, but in the end I just wasn't motivated enough. Supposing I did convince her to get the band going again, that would mean more bass practicing and probably more bass tutoring, on top of the one-on-one time I was already having to spend with Haruhi as her boyfriend. No, thank you. If Haruhi wanted to throw away her chance at sharing her considerable musical talents with the world, that was her problem, and certainly not mine.

After I paid the tab, Haruhi dragged me away to our next destination, which was...

"Wait a minute," I said. "Where are we going?"

"To a dance hall."

"You should have said so earlier. I can't dance."

"You can't do _anything_ , it seems. That's why you have to _learn_ how to do things. Don't worry. Even you can get dancing down within two minutes."

Famous last words.

Twenty-two minutes after we walked into the dance hall, I was stepping on Haruhi's feet so often you'd think I had them confused with floor panels. I'd like to claim that this was deliberate, a further attempt to convince Haruhi to break up with me, and at first it was. But after a while of Haruhi yelping "You clumsy idiot!", blushing in consternation, and belting out instructions in a voice increasingly laced with impatience, I started to feel sorry for her. I couldn't even blame her for the situation; making me play in her band was one thing, but it was only natural to expect that you could take your boyfriend out dancing. So I decided to cut her a break and start dancing properly, only to find that I couldn't.

I mean, I did get marginally better. Probably I had just psyched myself out by putting so much effort into being bad. Regardless, it really seemed to me like I had ten left feet, and Haruhi's opinion was not any more favorable.

"Look," she said, pushing me back for a moment. "You don't need to be all over me, okay? Just follow my lead, and take _small_ steps. Got it? Okay, one more time."

She pulled me back to her, so forcefully that I stumbled, nearly knocking us both over.

"What are you doing?!" She shoved me back.

"I wasn't ready for you to do that!"

"No excuses! Just stop trying to walk over me!"

I tried. Really, I did. For a few seconds I even thought I had it. Her feet moved, and by taking what felt like tiny baby steps, mine followed without landing on her toes.

But those tiny baby steps were not what my feet were used to, and my leg muscles got to me. I stumbled. By sheer luck I missed her toes this time, but Haruhi gave a grunt of irritation.

Then I felt someone tap on my shoulder. One of Haruhi's hands was resting on my right shoulder, but the tap was on my left shoulder.

I turned around, and there was an older boy (he looked like he could be as old as 20) in a stunning dark suit and tie. The sharp, perfectly ironed suit stood in contrast to his own appearance, which was well-groomed but totally nondescript. His looks were so lacking in distinction that his own mother couldn't be expected to pick him out in a crowd. He stood half a head shorter than me.

Smiling, he said, "Mind if I cut in?", and before my mind could process what was happening, he had swooped in, and his hand was in Haruhi's, her other hand on his shoulder, just as if they'd rehearsed this moment together.

While I stood there gawking, they proceeded to demonstrate what real dancing looked like. Haruhi, predictably, was quite skilled at it, and he was her match. I don't think I'd ever seen a couple move so gracefully.

"Thank goodness you showed up," Haruhi said to him. "That idiot over there was making my feet black and blue." I blushed, not so much because of the words themselves but because of the sincere relief in Haruhi's voice as she said them.

Logically, I should have left things at that and gone home. Well, maybe not gone home... Haruhi, seeing me as her personal pack mule, might still expect me to walk her home after that. But at the least, I could have stood outside the dance hall and enjoyed the cool evening air while I waited. Fate had smiled down upon me and relieved me of Haruhi duties for the night. Only a fool looked a gift horse in the mouth.

But I couldn't get rid of the sense that something was wrong. A stranger cutting in on a dance between boyfriend and girlfriend is the sort of thing that happens in the movies, not in real life. Of course they could have planned that maneuver; Haruhi didn't seem nearly as surprised by the stranger's appearance as I was, and she was certainly cruel enough to have found herself a better boyfriend and arranged this whole scenario just to humiliate me. But somehow, I didn't think that she had. Maybe it was her mood. It was hard to believe that she could be so horribly bored as she'd seemed for most of the date if she had a scam like this in the pipeline.

So I proceeded to lurk. I knew I would look suspicious, or at best pathetic, if I just slunk around the dance floor, so I checked the edges of the hall for girls awaiting dance partners. There was a chubby, unhappy-looking girl with an unsightly mole on her large nose, and I decided to kill two birds with one stone and brighten her evening a bit. I asked her for the next dance, and once the next song started up, I attempted to subtly maneuver towards Haruhi and her partner while treating my own partner to an enjoyable dance.

Strange though it may seem, I was so focused on the former task that it didn't occur to me that I was completely incapable of the latter until after we'd started. It didn't help that my new dance partner was too polite to push and shove me into the correct position. So we tottered across the dance floor, with frequent little feminine gasps of pain followed by mumbled apologies on my part, until I was in hearing distance of Haruhi and her partner.

Inevitably, as we got that close Haruhi spotted me. Glancing at me from over her partner's shoulder, a brief flash of excitement showed in her eyes. Well, that only made sense. There was nothing Haruhi loved more than adventure, and her boyfriend jealously shadowing her and her new beau was certainly classic adventure.

"...are a most lovely and charming woman," I heard him say. "But I do have an ulterior motive for approaching you."

 _Ah. Already we're getting somewhere._

"As incredible as it may sound, I am what you would call an alien," he continued. "The last of my race, in fact. And I need your help."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8** : _In which it is shown, yet again, that getting exactly what you want is often not a good thing, and that sometimes it is better to lose a fight than to win, and that_ _the power of suggestion can be an ugly thing_

When I heard those words, I froze.

This was the guy Haruhi described at our meeting. Romantic, enthusiastic, with looks that didn't matter, and the last of an alien species. It was the exact guy. Which could only mean that Haruhi had created him. Which meant that Koizumi's fears were true; whatever the reason, Haruhi's usage of her powers was unstable again.

This wasn't just a talking cat, either. An entire near-extinct alien species. Could Haruhi have recreated the world again?

But I had no time to ponder that question further. As soon as Haruhi heard those words, her eyes burned with anger – and looked directly at me.

"Excuse me," she said to her alien and, pushing him aside, stormed towards me. I barely had time to gulp before she grabbed me by the collar and yanked me out of my dance partner's arms, pulling my face down to hers. "The truth, now!" she snarled. "Was it you or Koizumi who put him up to this?"

"H-Haruhi, please..." I gasped. I don't think I'd ever seen her so angry.

"Of course it was you. You're the one who was so eager for me to get a different boyfriend. So you thought you'd give some boy my suggestions and have him take over for you, is that it? Or was this just some practical joke to humiliate me?!"

"Haruhi, I had nothing to do with this! You have to believe me!"

A struggle tore across her face. "...It was Koizumi, then?"

My mind was working full throttle. "You weren't exactly keeping your voice down during the meeting," I pointed out. "Anyone could have been listening in and heard you. Also, have you forgotten that part of the SOS Brigade's job is finding aliens? Isn't it just slightly possible that he is what he says he is?"

Haruhi was actually trembling now. She almost looked like she was holding back tears. "Kyon, I swear... if you're lying about this..."

"Do you really think I'd do something like this to you?"

I said that without thinking. I mean, of course it was true; I never played practical jokes, and I certainly wasn't stupid enough to think Haruhi wouldn't smell a rat if I had a guy quote her exact specifications for her perfect boyfriend. The hitch was that I said it in a rather, well, distraught tone. It was funny how, as much of a pain as Haruhi was, in a way it was more of a pain to see her upset.

My dance partner, apparently getting the idea that she'd been a pawn of some sort in a lover's quarrel, wandered off with a dejected look on her face. _Great. Nice going, Haruhi._

Haruhi seemed momentarily taken aback by the way I'd said those last words, and the alien made his move. He strode towards us and said, "Is this gentleman bothering you, my lady?"

 _"My lady"? Is this guy for real? And me, bothering her? Who grabbed who by the collar and subjected them to spittle and accusations?_

"It's not a problem," Haruhi said, suddenly smiling as she let go of my collar. "I was just explaining to my date here that it's over between us."

 _Oh, Haruhi. You don't know how I've longed to hear you say those words._

"Anyway," she continued, slipping her arm into his, "Why don't we get out of here and talk somewhere in private?" She winked at me.

 _Oh no._ It didn't take a genius to figure out that Haruhi was hoping to get him to spill the beans on where he'd heard what she said at that meeting. And the more time she spent talking to him, the more likely he'd bring her around to the discovery that he really was an alien.

Which was only the beginning of the potential trouble. Did this guy know about Haruhi's powers? Would he tell her? What kind of help did he want from her, and what if she agreed to do it? Would Haruhi leave North High and the SOS Brigade and become a starfaring woman for the rest of her life? All of which was just assuming that the alien's intentions were good.

There was no two ways about it: I needed to get Haruhi away from this guy until I could bring in Koizumi and Nagato to figure out how we were supposed to deal with him. They were already walking away, so I needed to act immediately. In a flash, I saw that this was the perfect opportunity to assuage Haruhi's suspicions that I didn't want to be her boyfriend.

"Excuse me," I said, walking after them. They didn't notice me. _Come on, bite the bullet. You've witnessed the world nearly come to an end. How much worse can this be?_ "Excuse me! That's my girlfriend you're walking off with, creep!"

That got his attention. "My name is Nagoshi. As for her being your girlfriend, it seems that Miss Suzumiya does not agree with you about that."

"No, I do not. I've told you, Kyon, we're through." Haruhi winked at me again, but her facial expression was genuinely angry. It was a very odd combination.

"Haruhi's playing games," I said. I took hold of her arm. "Come on, we're leaving."

"What are you doing? Let go of me!"

"No." I have to admit, I was really getting into the part. It wasn't often that I summoned up the pep and vigor to push Haruhi around; usually it only happened when she got me really mad. It felt good to stand up to her without anger to cloud the experience. "You've had your fun. I'm not letting you walk out with another guy."

"I'll walk out with whoever I want to walk out with!" She was still winking at me, now supplemented with some deliberate jerks of her head which I'm sure she thought clearly indicated she was playing along with Nagoshi to find out what his deal was, but looked more like she was twitching due to some nervous system disorder.

"Look, I promised your parents I'd bring you home safe, and that's what I intend to do." With that, I stopped fooling around and jerked her away from Nagoshi. Knowing what a tigress she could be, I got a good hold of the back of her dress and started marching her towards the exit.

"Kyon, if you don't let me go right now, you're out of the SOS Brigade."

"If it means keeping you out of a stranger's arms, I'll accept that sacrifice."

Nagoshi clamped a hand on my shoulder. "The lady said let go."

"You stay out of this." _Wow, that sounded good. Who knew I had this much testosterone at my disposal?_ "Haruhi's my girl, so when I -"

I didn't get to finish that sentence because a passing freight train, or maybe it was Nagoshi's fist, slammed into my jaw and knocked me flat onto the dance floor.

"Kyon!" Haruhi cried out.

Aside from that cry, a hush fell over the dance hall. I could feel everyone staring at the three of us. I could even see it, to an extent; it was only the left side of my face that was throbbing with pain. So much for testosterone.

Haruhi spun on Nagoshi. "Have you _lost your mind?!_ This isn't the movies – you can't just punch someone!"

Amazingly, she said that just as though she weren't the sort of girl who eagerly jump-kicked people at the merest hint that they were up for a fight. Nagoshi looked abashed and rather confused. "Forgive me... I... I really need to talk to you..."

"Well, you can forget it now. I'm going home. Come on, Kyon."

I groaned. "Just as soon as you make the room stop spinning..."

Nagoshi laid a hand on her shoulder. "Please, just give me five minutes to explaaaaaaiiiinnn!" He flailed in pain as Haruhi bent the offending hand back well over ninety degrees. Clearly, whatever sort of alien this guy was, he wasn't of Nagato's caliber. Unless he was faking it.

"Listen carefully. You are going to help Kyon onto his feet. And then you are going to walk away and never speak to me or lay a hand on me again unless I give you my explicit permission. Do you understand?"

"Y-y-yes!"

She let him go, and he obediently bent down and helped me to my feet. He even brushed me off a little, despite the fact that the dance floor was sparkling clean. I was still a little disoriented. Haruhi had to grab me to stop me from falling over again on the way out.

Once we were out the door, she started to lay into me. "I can't believe you did that. Did you really not understand what I was trying to do there?"

"You were hoping to figure out who sent him."

"Right for once! So why were you interfering?"

"I just..." I knew I was supposed to say something to indicate that I really did want to be Haruhi's boyfriend. It was the logical way to satisfy her pride and get her mood stable again. But as I said before, I couldn't stand lying to Haruhi, at least not more than absolutely necessary. I needed to deflect, to make it more about her behavior than mine. "...I just couldn't stand to let you walk out with him. You're not going to tell me that when you let him cut in on our dance before, you were planning on pumping him for info then?"

"That was _before_ he let out that he was a fraud. Your interfering came after."

"Of course." I had hit upon an idea now. "Then tell me why you needed to play along with him to get that information. You clearly knew he'd do anything you wanted if you just bent his wrist back far enough. Why not just get him to talk that way?"

"That wouldn't have been as artful or civilized."

"More like, wouldn't have been as fun. I think you decided you'd rather spend the rest of your evening with him than with someone who can't dance and gets knocked down with just one punch."

"Mmm. That _was_ pretty pathetic."

"So I'm right." The bitterness in my voice didn't have to be feigned. Of course I didn't want to be Haruhi's boyfriend, but it didn't feel great to get a low rating.

"What? No!" She slapped her forehead. "Why are you so shallow about these things? You have a lot of room for improvement as a boyfriend, but at least you're real! Nagoshi isn't. If he weren't just some pawn of an enemy of mine trying to humiliate me, then he'd be nothing more than a fantasy. If there really were some sole survivor of an alien race out there, he wouldn't be asking an ordinary human teenager for help, and he sure wouldn't do it by romancing her in a dance hall! He'd contact a government agency or an advanced scientific institution, or if he was afraid they'd hold him captive and experiment on him, he'd contact a retired secret agent or a brilliant but reclusive scientist, or something like that."

"Well, that's true." I put a hand to my face; it still stung. "But just suppose he really were what he said he was... and he asked you out on a date...?"

"Pass. A guy should be romantic with his girlfriend, but there is such a thing as too much, you know? I mean, throwing punches whenever a girl is insulted?"

"So when you were talking about your ideal boyfriend at the meeting, this isn't what you had in mind?" I voiced it as a real question, but I knew that Nagoshi was _exactly_ what she had in mind. If he weren't, she wouldn't have created him that way.

Haruhi let out a puff of breath. "Sometimes you don't know what you want until you see it, you know?"

Then she turned to me and smiled. Not one of her perfect smiles, but one of her mild, warm, _contented_ smiles. The kind that I could smile back at, instead of groan at.

And I did. But I felt a little bit sick inside. I had accomplished my goal; I had eased Haruhi's melancholy, and made her feel wanted by her boyfriend. Only now I had to live with the prospect of going on in this manner indefinitely. Because from the look of things, the more she thought I liked her, the more she liked me back.

We arrived at her home. As she came to the door, she turned to me and said, "Do you want to come inside for a minute?"

I froze.

I must have been suffering from prolonged expose to Takuma's dirty mind, because my immediate thought was, _"Do you want to come inside for a minute?" Isn't that what people say to their dates when they want to have sex?_

Haruhi's face shone with self-assurance and quiet happiness. _No. No way. No girl would be willing to go all the way on a third date._

 _Except that doing things which I thought no human being would ever do is Haruhi's whole lifestyle. I have no idea what she's capable of._

That was a disturbing thought, but what was even more disturbing was that it wasn't just shock at what she was potentially offering or uncertainty over whether or not she was offering it that had left me speechless. I was thinking about saying "yes". I wasn't attracted to Haruhi, regardless of her obvious physical charms, but it was hard not to be curious: _What is it like having sex with a girl who is so at ease with her body that she changes clothes in mixed company?_

Which was a stupid question, because of course I didn't know what it was like to have sex with _anyone_ , but somehow that didn't occur to me in that moment. I suppose I'm proof that if he reads enough racy fiction, even a virgin will start thinking of himself as an expert on sex.

It was like when you're a kid and you contemplate eating a worm or a spider. You know it's almost certainly going to be disgusting and that you'll probably hate yourself afterwards, but still you can't let go of that nagging question: _What, exactly, would it be like?_

 _There's no substitute for actually experiencing something. But then, that's no reason to actually jump off a building just to see what it feels like when your chest caves in and your organs all rupture at once. It certainly wouldn't be very reassuring at the moment when I enter Haruhi's bedroom and start thinking, "Oh God, what am I doing?" But jeez, if -_

"Ugh, if you have to think about it that long, you obviously aren't interested," Haruhi grumbled. "Good night."

She shut the door behind her.

As I walked to the train station, I laughed a little, because it was suddenly so obvious that Haruhi couldn't have been offering to have sex with me. As reckless and scatter-brained as she was, Haruhi did have a certain amount of common sense when it came to her own well-being. If she were as careless with her own life as she was with everything else, she wouldn't have lived this long. In fact, hadn't she once told me in as many words that she was abstaining from sex, to avoid getting pregnant? My brain must have been conveniently blocking that memory in order to indulge my sordid speculations.

But please, make no mistake, they _were_ speculations. Like eating a worm or a spider. However inept I might be as a romantic, I am too much of a gentleman to take advantage of a woman. Alright, there was a slim threat that I would have gone as far as her bedroom out of sheer curiosity, but as soon as she started undressing, I would have been out of there running.

On the train ride I called Nagato and told her about Nagoshi.

"I see," she said.

"Is he one of yours? I mean, do you have any information on him?"

"No."

"Could he be dangerous?"

"I will protect you."

"Hmm? Nagato, are you saying he _is_ dangerous? Nagato? Nagato?"

I checked my phone's display and saw that the call had been ended. I redialed and got her voicemail. Her prerecorded answer sounded remarkably like one of those default messages, like, "You have reached 327..." The only difference was that she mentioned her name. Of greater concern, however, was that this was the first time I'd ever reached Nagato's voicemail. It wasn't like I called her a lot, but when I did, she always answered on the first ring. Since I'd just been talking to her, the phone was obviously in reach. And it had rung, which meant that it still had power... Could something have happened to her?

But that was ridiculous. Nagato could always handle herself. Maybe she had pressed "ignore" by accident. Or more likely, she had hung up on me and was now working on finding out more about Nagoshi. Nagato didn't waste words.

I briefly thought of trying Koizumi, to bring him up to speed and maybe make sure Nagato was okay, but decided to let it wait until morning. Unlike Nagato, Koizumi was not indifferent to being called late at night, and I really wasn't in the mood to talk to him. Nagato was on the case, and that was good enough for me.

I made it home with time to spare before curfew, but even so, I was anxious to flop into bed and sink into a deep sleep. Maybe after taking some aspirin; my face was still aching from that punch.

But all that would have to wait.

Because naturally, Nagoshi was sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting for me.

"We need to talk," he said.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter 9**_ : _In which a problem appears to solve itself, though not happily so, and Haruhi gives Kyon a date review, though not consciously so_

"I suppose we do," I said, contemplating possible means of escape. I had anticipated that he might follow me, of course, but there hadn't seemed much I could do about it, apart from contacting Nagato and Koizumi. Pleas for protection from an alien who looks like a nondescript young man wouldn't go over well with the police. And as I had no idea what this guy was capable of, flight was clearly a better option than fight.

Then again, I had no idea whether his intentions were hostile or not, either. Certainly he had plenty of reasons to be hostile to me, and it would hardly be the first time Haruhi had unwittingly created something which could have killed me. But since apparently my fate is entirely in Haruhi's hands anyway, I might as well trust her, right?

I took a seat next to Nagoshi. "First of all," I said, hoping to at least stall, "I'm curious about something. Are you missing a finger?"

He flinched. "I... I am. How did you know that?"

"Haruhi said you would be." I guess she really did mean more than "wouldn't mind", the little nutjob. "So how do you mask your real appearance, anyway?"

"I doubt I could explain it in a way that you would understand. There are too few common points of reference between our species." He held out a hand, palm skyward. "For example, among my people it is considered common decency to strike any man who tries to force a woman to do something against her will. Apparently this is not the case among your people."

"No, it is not. It's also not considered common decency to shoot someone with a ray gun for any reason, in case you were wondering. Also, I was pulling Haruhi out of there for her own good."

"Yes, I came to suspect that was the case afterwards. Until Miss Suzumiya called out your name, I did not realize that you were her Kyon."

 _Oh, great. My interstellar fame precedes me._

He gave me a look that seemed oddly... comradely. "I hope you are not angry at me for striking you."

"I'm not angry. Actually, I feel sorry for you. You're like Frankenstein's monster; she created you and then decided she didn't want you immediately after."

His eyes widened. "'She created...' You mean Miss Suzumiya?"

For the first time, I turned and looked directly at him. "You know about her powers, right?"

"Of course! But I'd never dreamed that I was..." He shuddered. "Why did she create me? And when?"

I winced. "Believe me, you really don't want to know the answer to either of those questions."

It's quite amazing sometimes, how the universe can put things in perspective. Being stuck as Haruhi's boyfriend seemed a positively trivial complaint compared to having been created solely to be Haruhi's ideal boyfriend, even without factoring in that she'd then rejected him.

"...But I already know the answer to the first question, don't I?" Nagoshi murmured. "I fell in love with her from the moment we met. She must have created me for some romantic purpose."

"It doesn't really matter why she created you. You don't belong to her."

"To me, it's the only thing that matters. Even knowing that she made me to be in love with her, it doesn't change the fact that I am." He looked at me pleadingly. "That's why I needed to talk to you. The word is that you're the only one who can reason with her. Please, you have to convince her to talk to me again, as soon as you can manage it. Tomorrow morning, if that's possible. I need help, and she's the only one who can give it."

A horrible thought struck me. "Well, I can try..."

I said it naturally, but my face must have betrayed me. Or maybe it was something else; who knew what sort of means Nagoshi's people had of detecting unspoken thoughts. "There's something you're not telling me," he said. "What is it? Did she say something to you after the two of you left the dance hall?"

"It could be nothing," I disclaimed, still unsure if he might take his aggravations out on me. "It's just... she said... She said you weren't real."

His voice came out dry and tight. "She said I'm not real?"

"She was talking metaphorically," I said quickly, but that point wasn't enough to assuage even my fears.

"Even if she was, her subconscious could have meant it literally!" He shot to his feet. "We have to contact her _now_ , before she goes to sleep! If she does, she could wipe me right out of existence!"

I took out my phone and selected Haruhi's number, but I wasn't holding up much hope. Haruhi had to be an early-to-bed person; it was hard to imagine how she could maintain so much energy otherwise.

I held the phone to my ear for a moment, then lowered it and gave him the bad news. "It went straight to voicemail."

"Oh, god." Nagoshi was shaking now. "We must get over there immediately!"

"It's too late." I shrugged my shoulders in defeat. "She's probably already asleep. Even if she isn't, she will be by the time we get over there. And what would we do when we got there? Her parents won't like being disturbed at this hour, and they sure aren't going to wake Haruhi up just so I can talk to her. All we can do is leave it for the morning and try to get some rest."

"In the morning it will be too late for sure! We have to at least try! If you won't help, at least give me her address, and I'll go by myself."

I don't know that I'd ever seen anyone looking so terrified – and I couldn't say that I blamed him. "No, no," I sighed, and stood up. "I'll go with you." I didn't expect it to do any good, and I was already cringing at the looks Haruhi's parents were sure to give me, but that didn't really count when a man's existence was on the line, did it.

Nagoshi clasped my hand. "Thank you. Thank -"

He froze. Not with terror – more like he'd suddenly remembered something important.

Then his whole demeanor changed. Gone was the fear, the desperation, and the profuse gratitude. In their place were confusion and embarrassment. Gone, too, was that indefinable aura of unfamiliarity with this world.

"I- I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me." He stepped back and bowed. "It's all nonsense, all of it, of course."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know, all that foolery about me being an alien. I don't know why I said all that... Don't know why I bothered you at all." He was blushing now.

I shook my head. "Really, it's not a bother. I only hesitated because I'm feeling a bit tired. Come on, let's try and catch the next train."

"No! No, I couldn't possibly bother Miss Suzumiya about something so silly, even if it weren't for the way I acted earlier tonight."

"But she holds your existence in her hands!"

"I've told you, all that's nonsense. Miss Suzumiya is just an ordinary teenage girl."

"If there's one thing Haruhi is not, it's ordinary!"

"To you, perhaps," he smiled. "You're her boyfriend, after all. But to me, there's nothing special about her."

I stared at him.

"Please, convey my apologies to Miss Suzumiya for disturbing your evening. I wish you both the best."

He bowed again and walked away.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he glanced around the corner and exclaimed, "Oh! ...I'm sorry, miss. I didn't see you there. You didn't... overhear my conversation with the gentleman up there, did you?"

"No."

 _Nagato! It was Nagato!_

"You just arrived here, then?"

"Yes."

"Well, I wish you a good evening."

By the time the door shut behind Nagoshi, I was racing down the stairs. I rounded the corner and grabbed Nagato by the arm before she could get much farther.

"You were there the whole time, weren't you!" I held onto her arm with all my strength, even though she made no effort to escape. "After I called you, you used your alien super speed or whatever you call it to get here before I did, didn't you!"

"I did."

I turned her around to make her face me. "Then why didn't you do something? Once you heard what was going on, you could have raced over to Haruhi's place in a matter of minutes!"

"It still would have been too late."

"You didn't even _try_!"

"It is my duty to observe."

"You expect me to believe that you were here just to observe? When I called you, you said you would protect me. That was what you were here for, wasn't it?"

She looked at me steadily.

"Then why couldn't you have protected Nagoshi, too?!"

"Nagoshi has not been harmed."

"You're right, he's just had the very fabric of his existence rewritten! Damn it!" I let Nagato go and slumped to the floor. "Damn it."

Nagato didn't say anything, just kept looking at me. But to her credit, she didn't leave.

My face still ached from Nagoshi's punch, but even that was beginning to fade.

* * *

The next morning I called Koizumi and told him about Nagoshi. By that time, I was calmer about the issue.

"Is it possible Haruhi didn't actually create Nagoshi?" I asked. "That she just made an existing normal young man into an alien, or even just made him _think_ he was an alien, and then changed him back afterwards?"

"She could have," Koizumi acknowledged. "But I see no reason to think she would do so in this case. As we all heard, Miss Suzumiya's desire was for an actual alien, the last of his species. Creating such a being from a normal human would be like using an iron bar to make a woven basket - not impossible, but why not use a more appropriate material? It's more likely that either Miss Suzumiya created Nagoshi, or that Nagoshi already existed as he is, and she used her power to draw him to her."

"Meaning Haruhi herself wiped out the rest of Nagoshi's race."

"...Yes. It's an unpleasant idea, but -"

"It's impossible. Nagato said there was no information available on Nagoshi. If a whole race of him had existed until recently, and been wiped out, the Information Entity or whatever it's called would have known _something_ about it."

"I suppose that's so."

"So..." I mentally retraced our steps. "If Nagoshi's original state was nonexistence, why didn't Haruhi return him to that when she was done with him?"

"A very good question. Certainly, it would have required less effort than doing what she did. Perhaps it was your influence."

"Mine?"

"You persuaded Haruhi not to destroy this world. Perhaps she has been increasingly converted to your viewpoint, or at least increasingly willing to compromise to it, and has been avoiding unnecessary destructive applications of her power. Simply put, she spared Nagoshi's existence because she knew you would want her to. It's an encouraging step forward."

"It's not good enough. She toyed with a man's very existence, just on a whim."

"You can't blame Miss Suzumiya for that. She didn't even know she was doing it."

"She _should_ know." My frustration was rising back to the surface. "She shouldn't be allowed to go on ruining lives in total ignorance. She should have the responsibility of keeping her powers under control."

"I understand your anger, but we have to approach this matter logically. If Miss Suzumiya becomes aware of her powers, it will only add the threat of her using them consciously, while leaving the threat of her using them subconsciously unabated. That will add to the number of lives ruined, as you put it, with no benefit beyond making Miss Suzumiya responsible for it all, if you consider that a benefit. Given that you care about Miss Suzumiya, I had rather thought you wouldn't."

"Unlike you, I don't assume Haruhi is incapable of controlling her power."

"You are sure of that, then?"

I hesitated. _Shouldn't I be sure by now? I've known Haruhi for long enough..._ "Not yet," I said.

"Well," Koizumi said. "I recommend you don't tell her anything until you are. These are pretty high stakes to be throwing dice on. At any rate, it's good that the date went so well from Miss Suzumiya's perspective."

"Yes, it must have been wonderful. Bored out of her skull for the first half, and in the second half she got her toes repeatedly stepped on, a stranger quoted back to her specifications for a perfect boyfriend that she'd told her subordinates in private, I frustrated her attempt to play at espionage, she was the center of attention in a public fistfight, and to cap it off, her date turned her down on a simple offer to come inside for a minute. She must have had an absolute ball."

"Well, she _must_ have," he chuckled. "No closed space formed this time, and she called me this morning to tell me that she's in love with you."

"...That's not funny."

"Forgive me. I was curious what your reaction would be. But actually, she did call me this morning. She wanted to know if I thought you were taking this dating business too seriously."

" _Too_ seriously? Didn't she center a whole meeting of the SOS Brigade around it?"

"Not seriously in that sense. She's starting to think you've fallen for her."

I groaned. "All I did was hint that her trying to leave with Nagoshi made me jealous. Nothing else."

"Don't talk as though you've done something wrong. This is exactly what I asked of you last time we spoke. Whatever you did to pull it off, I approve. For that matter, if by some chance you are genuinely falling for Miss Suzumiya, I approve of that as well."

"This isn't another joke? Or speculation? Haruhi really thinks I'm in love with her?"

"Not exactly. She's leaning towards that conclusion."

"And you encouraged that, didn't you?"

"Encouraging her in any direction is not my job. I simply answered that based on your behavior in the last meeting, you seemed quite resigned to the fact that she would never choose you as her boyfriend outside of the considerations of the SOS Brigade. She then said that it didn't seem that way when you fought with Nagoshi over her. She said it in a huff, but she seemed quite pleased."

"She must have a thing for losers. Nagoshi put me on the floor with one punch. I wouldn't even call it a real fight."

"The point is, from her perspective, you showed that you wanted her. Now you need to keep up that impression. I recommend that _you_ ask _her_ out for the next date."

I said goodbye to Koizumi as soon as possible. He was just so infuriatingly complacent about everything. Which was fine when all was in fact well, but after what happened with Nagoshi, I was not in the mood.

Thanks to that date I still hadn't gotten a start on my weekend homework. I knuckled down and did what I could, but after ten minutes I started to feel worn out and overwhelmed. I pushed myself away from my desk, sat down on my bed, and picked up my bass.

Ordinarily I'd be less enthusiastic about practicing bass than doing homework, but it had been five days since the band's last full rehearsal, so I wasn't sick of playing the thing for a change. I was even starting to miss Haruhi's songs. Of course I'd always realized they were good songs, but after playing them every weekday for weeks on end, I would have thought I'd have had my fill. I was wrong, it would seem.

I spent an hour or so alternately playing through the band's tunes and simply fiddling around, improvising and seeing what different sounds I could make. It was a pointless exercise, but not without enjoyment. Without Haruhi around to kibitz and remonstrate, playing bass actually became a pleasurable activity. Strange how I'd never discovered that before.

I again considered asking Haruhi to get the band going again. The world would be a better place if people heard Haruhi's songs, and maybe if I practiced more, playing them would be somewhat enjoyable, or at least less difficult. Also, if I'm honest, I wanted to see Haruhi in that outfit more.

 _Ah, why bother? She probably won't listen to me, and if she does, do I really want more endless rehearsals and having to put up with Takuma's sick innuendos?_

I put my bass aside and picked up my phone. Much as I wished otherwise, Koizumi was right: Picking a fight with Nagoshi and basically lying to Haruhi would be for nothing if I broke the deception by waiting for her to set the next date. Also, this way I could pick the day, which meant I could give myself the weekend off. Swallowing my misgivings, I selected Haruhi's number.

She picked up on the second ring. "What do you want?"

 _Nice to hear the sound of your voice, too._ "I just thought, if you're not doing anything after the meeting Monday, we could go for a walk in the park." I needed something that would give my wallet a break.

"A walk in the park," she repeated. She sounded bored. "So this would be another date, then?"

"What's so unusual about that? I'm your boyfriend, right?"

"Nothing unusual about that. Nothing unusual at all."

 _Okay, clearly Haruhi is NOT in the mood Koizumi told me she was._ "So you don't want to go," I said, my mind scrambling for alternative date ideas. "Well, how about -"

"Did I say I don't want to go?" she interrupted.

"You don't sound happy about it."

"Is there some rule that says I have to be happy about every date we go on?"

 _Sheesh. That's some pretty twisted logic, even by Haruhi's standards._ "Look... Haruhi... If you're miserable going out with me, then we should stop. Your plan to get people interested in the SOS Brigade hasn't been working, you've already gotten my feet wet in the high school dating pool, and neither of those things are so important that they're worth making you unhappy."

I said it without thinking. I didn't need to think about it, because every word was true.

Haruhi was silent for a moment. "...So you _do_ want me to break up with you after all."

"You're not listening to me. What _I_ want doesn't matter. You have to decide according to what makes you happy. If you want to go for a walk in the park with me Monday, I'm offering. If you don't, forcing yourself to go is just going to give both of us a bad time."

"Whatever makes me happy makes you happy, is that it?"

"Yes."

 _I could comment on what a dangerous thing that is to say to Haruhi Suzumiya, but really, she does have common sense about certain things. And this could really be it. The end of my interminable journey between a rock and a hard place._

 _The moment where Haruhi finally breaks up with me._

"That's sick," she said.

"Huh?"

"That's sick and twisted and horribly wrong. If you really want me, the only thing you should care about is that I say yes. If you don't really want me, you shouldn't have asked me out in the first place. So I hope for your sake that you really do want me, Kyon, because I accept your invitation. It's a date."

"Ah..."

"No backsies!" she yelled.

"Ow. What are you angry about? ...Haruhi?" I looked at my phone screen; she'd hung up.

I let my face fall into my hands. This screwed-up relationship was never going to end.

* * *

I took an afternoon walk to clear my thoughts. I managed to steady myself enough to go back over what Koizumi and Haruhi had said about her feelings with a mind to the fact that neither of them were necessarily telling me the truth.

Koizumi had told me that Haruhi said I was taking our dating "too seriously". She supposedly said it "in a huff", but happily. But when I talked to her, only the "in a huff" part was apparent. Meaning that maybe she didn't like the idea of her boyfriend mooning over her. But if that was the case, why did she say "yes" to the date without sorting that out?

Maybe it did get sorted out. I made the suggestion of her saying "no" if she didn't want, so maybe that was enough to convince her I wasn't being too clingy. But then why the bit about "If you really want me, the only thing you should care about is that I say yes"? Did she want me to be madly in love with her or no?

I couldn't believe that I'd been in any way unconvincing when I told her that it's what she wants that counts. It hadn't even occurred to me until afterwards that that might be my way out. Whichever way I sliced it, whether Koizumi was lying or not, something Haruhi had said to me was not the truth.

It had to be that Koizumi was wrong. If Haruhi was really happy about the way things were going, she'd have had no reason to get mad at me – not like that, anyway. Besides, if she liked my supposedly being in love with her, then why all the talk about how sick and wrong-headed love was? Haruhi had many faults, but being afraid of her feelings was not one of them. If she wanted love, she wouldn't need to hide it.

Whatever she might feel for me, I concluded, Haruhi did not like the idea of us being actual lovers. We were friends experimenting with dating, and that's the way she liked it.

Then I noticed something on the sidewalk beneath me. Drawn in the cement was a simple heart with "H + K" inside of it.

"H" and "K" surely stood for any number of couples out there. But I was still walking in my neighborhood, through streets I knew by heart. The cement for this patch of sidewalk had been poured years ago, and there had never been anything written in it.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's notes: Here we are with the grand finale. (There's still an epilogue coming, though.) I've been personally replying to all of my reviews, but I want to give a public thank you as well to everyone who has reviewed. I won't lie: Even though Haruhi's Boyfriend has been more heavily reviewed than almost any Haruhi Suzumiya fic which has come out in the past five months or any fic which I've posted in the past six years, I was hoping for more reviews, but that just makes me appreciate the ones I got all the more. It's always good to hear what people are enjoying and what they aren't enjoying.

I've already got another major fic in the works in which Haruhi takes her relationship with Kyon in a direction he'll be even less comfortable with, but in the meantime I have a few one-shots to get out, starting with a chilling tale of terror – hopefully for readers, but definitely for me, when I checked the word count and found it was over 9,500! So I have some trimming to do on that one, since it is emphatically meant to be a short story, but you can expect to see it soon.

In the meantime, enjoy the conclusion.

* * *

 **Chapter 10** : _In which Kyon sets a new world record, and reflects a little on his performance_

Haruhi and I didn't say a word to each other in class Monday morning.

That's not as big of a deal as it probably sounds. The last time we hadn't spoken to each other in class was when we had that big fight during the making of our movie, but it had happened on a couple occasions before that for no particular reason. Some days Haruhi just wasn't in a talking mood, and on some of those days I preferred silence to chatting with her. This was one of those days.

Alright, I was a bit scared to talk to her. Name one person who wouldn't be unnerved to find his girlfriend had carved their initials into solid concrete.

On Sunday it made it onto the local news. I was ready to thank every god of every religion that Haruhi used initials instead of our actual names. Death would have been preferable to that level of public exposure. The two of us being linked to a certified paranormal phenomenon could have been a problem, too. Haruhi might decide that the concrete inscription was a message from aliens that the two of us were meant to be together.

And I still couldn't make heads or tails of our Saturday phone conversation. The only way her attitude might have any consistency is if she really did want me to try to take her by force, to drag her away from rivals and care more about her saying "yes" than about her being happy, and I just couldn't believe that of Haruhi. Above all else, Haruhi was strong-willed. I just couldn't believe that her heart's desire in any way involved me pushing her around.

Which, as I said, left me nowhere as far as what went on in that conversation, and what the hell Haruhi wanted from me.

We didn't talk at the SOS Brigade meeting, either. I half-expected another overview of our latest date, but she just commented on my lateness when I came in and proceeded clicking and typing away at her computer.

As Miss Asahina poured me a cup of tea, I asked, "Have you any idea what she's up to?"

She smiled. By this time I had of course apologized to her for my unkind words on Wednesday. I was lucky that she wasn't the sort of woman to hold grudges. "Just browsing the internet for news of anything paranormal. She hasn't done that in a while, but it's nothing to be concerned about, I don't think."

"I see." I nodded, trying to think of anything that might give me a clue. "Did she say anything about me before I came in?"

Miss Asahina shook her head. "She never talks about you when you're not around." She moved on to Koizumi's cup.

Well, that made sense. Haruhi had grown more sociable during her stint at high school, but I was still the only one she turned to if she wanted to get something off her chest. Ordinarily that was the least of the headaches Haruhi gave me, but right then I'd have given a lot for her to have just one other confidant that I could leech info off of.

I glanced at her while I sipped my tea. She looked very intensely focused on her internet browsing. Her mood didn't seem angry, but it didn't invite conversation either. I decided to spare myself the trouble.

* * *

So that's how I got through two of my three appointed Haruhi encounters for the day painlessly. It wasn't until I stepped out of the SOS Brigade clubroom that I realized that by doing so, I had merely set up the third encounter to be extra painful. We had a date, and that meant I had to interact with her, like it or not.

I still put off saying anything until we actually got to the park. Haruhi looked sullen on the way over, almost like a child being forced to go to the dentist.

As we passed into the shade, I finally said, "So, what did I do to make you angry at me?" I couldn't think of a better way of broaching the subject than to talk as if it were no big deal.

"Who said I'm angry at you?" If she was playing it casual too, she was doing it a lot better than I was.

"Well, when I asked you out on this date, you yelled at me."

"I was in a bad mood."

"Was the park a bad idea for a date?"

"The park's fine. Get over yourself already. I can be in a bad mood without you having anything to do with it."

I wasn't sold that her attitude had nothing to do with our dating, but maybe it was time to broaden my net. "What is it that's bothering you, then?"

She sighed. "I'm just bored, you know?"

 _Well, you could try putting the band back together._

"I've been looking for exciting things to happen everywhere I can," she continued, oblivious to what I was thinking, "...but it all turns out ordinary and dull in the end."

"You're joking. In the past week I became your boyfriend, Takuma added obscene lyrics to your song, your band broke up, and a stranger cut in on our dancing claiming to be an alien, before knocking me down with one punch."

"Which would have been exciting if he really were an alien, the band had played any shows or made any albums, Takuma wasn't just obscene by nature, and you put any more than the bare minimum of enthusiasm and effort into being my boyfriend," she returned.

I stopped to lean against a tree. "There's no pleasing you, is there?"

"Excuse me?" She folded her arms and glared at me. "Are you really telling me that you think of yourself as some kind of model boyfriend?"

"That's not what I meant. Dull boyfriend or no, you've had more excitement this past week than most people see in a year. Don't you think maybe your standards are a little high?"

"Well, why shouldn't they be? Don't you think this whole world could use a lot more excitement? Why should I settle with whatever is handed to me no matter how little it is?"

"Well, because you'd be less easily bored."

"It's always the easy way out with you," she huffed, and started walking away. I jogged a few paces to catch up. "The world is too boring, and your solution is to be satisfied with less excitement. Pathetic. You haven't even bothered to do anything romantic since we got here. How is this date any different from us just talking in class?"

Well, I liked it that way. Talking with Haruhi about her thoughts and feelings directly was a lot better than any of the crazy things she made me do with her in general, and was certainly a lot better than pretending to be in love with her. But of course, I couldn't tell her that.

"Look, what's my motivation?" I said. "Like I told you on the phone, this isn't getting people interested in the SOS Brigade, and I've already learned all I want to know about high school dating. All that's left is the usual reason people go on dates, and you've made it clear that I don't stand a chance with you."

"Ugh, that's the most pathetic thing you've said yet. We're on our fourth date, and you've decided you have no chance just because I said you don't? That's like forfeiting a baseball game when you're four points ahead just because the other team says you're going to lose. If there were a guy I liked, and he asked me to be his girlfriend strictly for professional reasons, I'd recognize that as my 'in'. I'd go out with him, and use every move at my disposal until I had him wrapped around my little finger."

 _I wouldn't be so confident, considering by far your best move is to shut up and look_ _beautiful_ _._ _You need to learn_ _when to give up. Still, since she's given me the go-ahead..._

I reached down and took hold of her hand. She gave a sharp little intake of breath. "What's wrong?" I said. "You said I should do something romantic, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but... I didn't think you'd actually _do_ it."

She squeezed my hand, as if to show me she wasn't afraid.

We walked in silence for... probably not even a minute, but it felt like a half hour. Haruhi may not have been scared, but I sure was. _What was I thinking? Appeasing Haruhi's romantic ego isn't going to ever get me out of this, no matter what Koizumi says. At best, it delays disaster for a little while._

 _Okay, settle down. Yes, I'm holding Haruhi's hand, but she hasn't given any sign of wanting to take it further. In fact, she still looks bored. And it's just a girl's hand - nothing to be intimidated about. Maybe if it were Miss Asahina's hand, but this is just Haruhi._

I felt calmer. The warmth of her hand, her steps keeping pace with mine, actually started to feel peaceful.

"Let's try up here," she said, and scampered up the nearest tree limb.

"What are you doing?" _And what do you mean, "Let's try"?_

"What does it look like?" She sat down about five feet out along the branch. "Now stop asking stupid questions and get up here."

"No thank you. Also, climbing trees? You're how old now?"

"Get up here now, or I'll scream that you're looking up my skirt."

The park wasn't crowded, but there were enough people around to cause me extreme embarrassment if Haruhi carried out her threat, and I knew her too well to think she was bluffing. I sighed and climbed up. The limb shuddered under our combined weight, but Haruhi didn't flinch. I didn't, either – I froze.

"Come on," she said, grabbed hold of my elbow, and helped me the rest of the way up. Once we were both in our seats, the swaying of the branch slowed, which calmed me down.

I took hold of her hand again, this time not so much a conscious decision as simply picking up where we left on when we were walking on terra firma.

"See, isn't the view much better from up here?" she said.

I had to admit that it was. It wasn't so bad, just sitting up there holding hands. For all my fears about dating Haruhi, at that moment I could imagine worse fates.

"It's funny, though," I commented. "The higher you get, the more gravity seems to pull on you."

"What, and you let a little thing like that stop you from going where you want?"

"I would," I answered, "...if you'd let me."

The corners of her mouth turned up slightly; she seemed to take it as a compliment. Then I realized, belatedly, that it _was_ a compliment.

That moment... It was quiet, and serene, and Haruhi seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

Quiet and serene, that is, except for the sharp knob of tree branch digging into my butt. It hadn't bothered me that much when I first sat down, but the longer I sat there, the further it seemed to dig into my flesh. Haruhi and the trunk didn't leave me much room to scootch, so I pushed myself up with my right arm, hoping to adjust myself so that the knob wouldn't jab into me. This maneuver incidentally leaned my face towards Haruhi. She looked at me, uncertain for a split second, but then she closed her eyes and tilted her head.

It dawned on me, to my horror, that she thought I was trying to kiss her.

 _What do I do? I can't possibly kiss that mouth in public! I don't even know how I brought myself to do it in closed space. But if I don't…_

 _Haruhi_ _will look at it as_ _a rejection,_ _and Haruhi doesn't deal well with not getting what she wants._ _She might create another Nagoshi. Or worse._

As I struggled over my dilemma, I stalled by inching myself closer, as if I were nervous and taking it slow. Closer, and closer, and I still couldn't think of what to do, and the fate of the world could be -

"I can't take this anymore!" Haruhi screamed in my face, and slid off the tree branch, landing neatly on the ground. "Dull, dull, DULL!"

She was already walking away. "Huh? Haruhi, wait!" She showed no sign of stopping, so I hastily hopped off the tree branch. My legs buckled under the force of the landing, making me fall onto my hands and knees, skinning my palms. "What…?"

She turned on me. "I can't do this anymore, Kyon. I held out as long as I could, but you're just the most boring boyfriend in the universe! Even when you make an effort, all you can come up with is tricks that were old when dinosaurs walked the Earth! It's over, okay? Over!"

With that, she stormed off, leaving me blushing with humiliation under the stares of the passers-by who had not failed to hear her loud tirade.

* * *

I should have felt better once that embarrassment wore off. The weight of being Haruhi's boyfriend had finally been lifted off my shoulders.

But as I walked to school the next day, all I kept thinking about was whether or not my entire relationship with Haruhi was over. That breakup had been fairly explosive. Maybe I would walk into homeroom to find that the seating was being changed again, this time with my desk not conveniently located next to Haruhi's - and for the first time, I realized that I didn't want that. As much of a pain as Haruhi was, she was a part of my life now, and I didn't know what to do with myself without her running everything. More importantly, life without Haruhi was life without Koizumi, Nagato, and Miss Asahina.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Taniguchi ran up behind me and slapped me on the back. "Hey hey, man, congratulations!"

"Huh?"

"You broke the record, man! Nine days! You were Suzumiya's boyfriend for nine whole days!"

Until Taniguchi mentioned it, I'd forgotten about that. The best I could manage was a grunt in response. I felt sick.

"Come on, leave him alone," Kunikada said. "Can't you see he was really hung up on Miss Suzumiya?"

"Annh, it's not like he didn't know ahead of time what he was getting into! Anyone who asks Haruhi Suzumiya out expecting a long-term relationship deserves whatever he gets. You knew she wasn't going to be your girlfriend for long, didn't you, Kyon? You told us so yourself!"

I sighed. "Yeah, I knew. It was never anything serious, Kunikada. I just wish she could have made the breakup a little less public."

"Oh yeah. Man, that was cold! Classic Suzumiya."

 _Just my luck that someone from North High would happen to be in the park at the time. Or maybe it was Haruhi. If she was thinking of breaking up with me on that date, even subconsciously, she might have drawn someone to us to act as a witness. Maybe she was angry at me after all, and wanted to hurt me._

But even that sounded like wishful thinking. Haruhi's breakup tirade had been loud, but it had not been even remotely emotional. Her words, her tone, her poise, all added up to the overall impression that I'd been nothing more than another short-lived diversion for her.

When I arrived in class, Haruhi was resting her jaw on her left wrist, staring out the window. Looking bored. She didn't budge when I took my seat in front of her. Or even blink, so far as I noticed.

"So," I tried, "...am I still in the SOS Brigade?"

"Of course you are," she muttered, sounding irritated at the question. "Why wouldn't you be?"

I felt a wave of relief. "Well, you broke up with me yesterday, didn't you?"

"I thought I made it clear. You being my boyfriend has nothing to do with the SOS Brigade or anything else."

"That is what you said, but -"

"But what? Are you trying to say that I would say one thing and do another?"

 _You know what? I'm going to let that one pass. Too easy._

"By the way, I've got a few things to sort out after school, so I'll probably be late to the meeting. I might not even show up at all."

"Alright." I put a hand to my jaw. "You're not angry with me at all?"

"Why would I be angry with you? If anything, _you_ should be angry with _me_. I broke up with you, after all."

She sounded like she wanted an actual response from me, but I was too distracted by the fact that Haruhi had just admitted to a logical reason for someone to be angry with her to come up with anything.

* * *

"You don't seem very happy for a man who just got exactly what he wanted," Koizumi observed, placing his piece and flipping over two others.

"Nnn," I grunted, picking up one of my pieces. "Just feeling one or two regrets. I _am_ relieved it's over. It's just... Call me an egomaniac, but I'd gotten to like the idea that I was special to Haruhi, even if I don't like Haruhi herself. So it's a little disillusioning that when I date her, I end up being just another in her long string of short-lived boyfriends."

Koizumi chuckled. "Well, I wouldn't get disillusioned on that front. She may have decided against dating you for the time being, but Miss Suzumiya's feelings towards you are unchanged."

"What makes you so sure of that?" I placed my piece and started flipping.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. But it wasn't _his_ phone. "She let me borrow this for the day. I told her that one of my relatives is in the hospital and I forgot my phone at home." He pushed a few buttons and held it up to show me.

And there they were. The photos of me feeding Haruhi tacos.

I didn't know what to say. Koizumi prompted, "She said she deletes any boyfriend photos she has whenever she breaks up with them, didn't she?"

"So? Maybe she hasn't gotten around to it yet. From the time we broke up to the time you borrowed her phone, it's been less than twenty-four hours."

"I think we both know that when Miss Suzumiya gets an idea in her head, she acts on it promptly."

"I think we both also know that if there is one thing her behavior isn't, it's consistent. Besides, maybe she was lying about deleting boyfriend photos."

"That would just raise the question of why she lied. A question with a fairly obvious answer." He smiled as he returned the phone to his pocket. "Let's just take it as read that Haruhi kept these pictures because they capture a happy moment with someone very special to her."

"Nnngh." _Okay, it was a nice thought, but did it have to be the taco-feeding? Why not photos of us…_ _um..._ _talking about that awful movie, or... sitting in_ _a_ _tree..._ _Dammit._ "That just makes me I wish I had put more effort into our dating while it lasted. Being Haruhi's boyfriend isn't my idea of a pleasant experience, but it's an experience I probably won't have a second time. I could have gotten a few worthwhile memories out of it. Instead, all I have is a walk in the park, feeding Haruhi tacos, a really bad kiss, and equally bad dancing."

"Well, sometimes life gives you a second chance."

"And sometimes one chance is all you get."

"That's true." He took a piece and made his move. "We must always keep an eye out for important opportunities. They can slip by without us ever noticing or appreciating them."

"Sort of like how you just overlooked that opportunity to secure an entire row?"

"Hmm?" He looked at the board, and his eyebrows suddenly lifted. "Well, will you look at that..."

"Too late." I placed one of my pieces, permanently securing the row for myself.

He chuckled. "Point well made." He fingered his next piece as he studied the board. "But you mustn't lay all the blame upon yourself. Miss Suzumiya must learn to enjoy the ordinary things in life. After all, consider the consequences if she does not."

"Which are?"

"Well, by definition, the ordinary is simply that which happens often in one's life. For example, to one who is not a member of the SOS Brigade, one high school girl forcing another to change into a maid costume is exceptional and bizarre. But to us, it is routine and ordinary. This means that Miss Suzumiya's desire to have her life be nothing but exciting and exceptional events can never be obtained, in this world or any other. Once something wonderful and exciting starts happening all the time, it becomes ordinary. If Miss Suzumiya does not realize that that does not make it less wonderful or exciting, then there is nothing that will not bore her once she makes it commonplace. She could destroy the world and recreate it, over and over, each time filling it with a new set of exciting things, only for them to become ordinary and dull to her, prompting her to destroy the world again. The cycle would only end when her imagination runs out of possibilities, leaving her with only an eternity of boredom and emptiness."

"A very bleak picture," I remarked. "Especially for you. I thought your opinion was that all of Haruhi's problems would be solved by me telling her I love her."

"Well, it's something I'd like to see happen. But I am a realist. The amount of good love can do for Miss Suzumiya depends entirely on how much value she places on love and the things lovers do with each other and for each other. If she deems them boring, then they are worthless to her." He set his piece down upon the board.

I stared at the board for a moment, not really able to concentrate on it. A thought had taken hold of my mind.

That thought was interrupted by a banging at the clubroom door. It was clear from the tone of the banging that it was not a fist knocking against the door.

Miss Asahina was already up, so she answered the door. On the other side was Haruhi, carrying a stack of ten books. "Good news, everyone! I've found a -" She stopped there. "Mikuru! Why aren't you wearing your maid outfit?"

Miss Asahina quivered. "W-w-well, Kyon said you probably weren't coming today, s-so..."

"You listened to that idiot? And what does my being here have to do with it, anyway? I don't have you wear that outfit for my own benefit."

She cringed and wrung her hands. _Why can't Haruhi let that poor girl have one day's break from wearing demeaning outfits?_

"But never mind," our general continued. "We have important things to plan today. We can discuss your punishment later." She set the books on the table. "Yuki, get over here too! I have reading material for all of us!"

 _So we finally have a club activity that Nagato can have a genuine interest in?_

Distributing the books equally among the five of us, Haruhi commented, "Koizumi, you work on dragons... Mikuru, you tackle succubi... Yuki, you'll be our expert on golems... Kyon, you've got zombies... and I'll take care of griffins."

I glanced at the books she'd given me: _Zombies Through the Ages_ and _Zombies: Magic, Myth, and Mystery._ Terrific. _Would you explain what we're doing? Why are you giving us books on the mythological creatures you think each of us most resembles?_

"We're going to design the most fantastical, unique, and fearsome monster we can come up with, and then we're going to build the costume for it! It's going to be an amalgamation of some of the best monsters in existence, so we've got to read up on them!"

That raised the question of what the costume was for, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. I had a feeling it had to do with the sequel to our movie, and for the moment I wanted to just take in the relief that Haruhi was indeed still normal in spite of our breakup. Normal Haruhi was nothing to be happy about, but I had come to fear that any sudden change would be far worse.

We all sat and read together for a while. Eventually Haruhi got up, announced she was going home, and admonished us to get plenty of reading done by the next meeting.

As she closed the door behind her, my thought from earlier resurfaced. _"...we must always keep an eye out for important opportunities. They can slip by without us ever noticing or appreciating them."_

I'd allowed one opportunity to pass me by, but there was still a chance I could seize this one. I grabbed my things together, hurried out the clubroom, and caught up to Haruhi in the hall.

As I came up beside her, I said, "Yo."

She glanced at me. "What?"

"Can I walk part of the way home with you? I have a couple things I want to say to you."

"Sounds like a speech." She sighed. "Go ahead."

I took a deep breath to rally my courage. "I haven't been totally honest with you these past few days." She shot me a look. "And I _want_ to be honest with you. It's very important that you can trust me. I can't really explain why, but it is. So all the things I lied about, I'm going to tell the truth to you about now.

"I never wanted to be your boyfriend. That was a misunderstanding, and once it started I was afraid I'd hurt your feelings if I told you the truth. I know now that you completely hated dating me, but I didn't realize that then. So I really was serious about wanting you to break up with me. That's also why I pretended to be jealous of Nagoshi. The real reason I wanted to get you away from him was because I thought he might be dangerous.

"And I think it's only fair to let you know that dating you was a lot more fun than I thought it would be." I know what you're thinking, but this was actually true. Looking back, there were even a few moments where I'd enjoyed myself. Which wasn't to say that the experience as a whole was pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. "You know how to have fun, and it's easy to talk to you, even on a date. If you didn't always act so hostile and weird at school, you'd get a lot more guys asking you out. And maybe one of them would even turn out to not be boring."

We passed through the school doors and stepped outside. As I stiffened at the cold air, it struck me that Haruhi still hadn't interrupted me, which was encouraging.

"Anyway, it's something to think about," I continued. "I also wanted to talk with you about the band. If you want us to work on this monster project instead, we'll do it, but I think you should get the band going again. You're too talented to not give it a real shot. People should be hearing you on radio stations and in packed stadiums. I know I haven't been doing your music justice with my bass playing, but I promise to practice this time if you give the band another shot. I wouldn't mind you tutoring me again, either."

Haruhi finally spoke up: "And who did you have in mind for drummer?"

If she really wanted them to be, even Koizumi or Miss Asahina could be as phenomenal a drummer as Nagato was a guitarist. But what would Haruhi learn from having a band comprised entirely of herself and her personal slaves? So I said: "Takuma, of course. He still wants to be in the band; he just got fed up with you treating him like dirt. Just start respecting his opinions, use one or two of his suggestions, and at least _talk_ about possibly changing the band's name, and he'll happily follow your lead. I know you can do it. All you have to do is show your band members the respect you showed ENOZ when you played with them.

"Look, just talk to him. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. You'll have to make one or two compromises, but that doesn't make you any less the leader of the band. The opposite, really. Making tough decisions is the most important part of being a leader."

We walked in silence for a moment. Then she said, "Are you done?"

"Yes."

"Good." Her tone could have withered an oak tree.

So, I suppose my words had fallen upon deaf ears.

She breathed on her hands to warm them. "Out of curiosity, why didn't you want to be my boyfriend?"

"It's just," I shrugged, "...that's not what our relationship is, you know?"

It was true, though a bit of a dodge, and my wanting to be honest with Haruhi didn't mean I had to insult her to her face.

"I see. I didn't realize you were so bent on keeping your relationships neatly categorized." She smiled. "By the way, dating you was more fun than I expected, too. At least you weren't shy all the time, or always trying to make a move on me, like the other boys I've dated. It was really only towards the end that I got bored."

I was glad that I hadn't angered her or hurt her feelings by telling the truth about my being her boyfriend, though I was hardly surprised by it. _But as for not being shy or always trying to make a move, Haruhi? That's only because I'm not attracted to you. If it were Miss Asahina I were dating, I'd have been both those things._

After our paths diverged and we said our "See you tomorrow"s, I made a little detour on my way home to see if the "H + K" was still written in the sidewalk, or if Haruhi's subconscious had erased it.

It was still there.

But it no longer frightened me. Koizumi had overlooked a subtle but important distinction - ironically, more or less the same one he'd had to point out to me when I became Haruhi's boyfriend. Haruhi's mood wasn't a function of my level of desire to be her boyfriend; it was a function of my level of desire to spend time with her. That, too, was probably the reason she had created Nagoshi. She didn't want a boyfriend per se, just someone who would want to spend time with her more than anything else. While I couldn't return the feelings she had for me, I could satisfy her by giving her some small measure of what she wanted.

* * *

I thought that marked the end of this particular chapter of my misadventures with Haruhi Suzumiya. The issue of the band was still hanging, but I felt confident that I'd done the right thing. If Haruhi got the band back together, then I would gladly endure all the struggles that would entail for the satisfaction of bringing her and Nagato's exceptional musical talents to the world. If she didn't, well, then I'd done the best I could.

As I sat down at my desk Wednesday morning, Haruhi flashed me a proud grin. "Hey, Kyon! Wait till today's meeting. I've got a big announcement that I know you're going to love."

"Why not just tell me now?"

"Because it's a surprise! You've got to let the anticipation build!"

 _I feel something building, but I'm pretty sure it's not anticipation..._ "Alright. So you're not bored anymore?"

"Definitely not!"

Well, at least she was happy.

I had a bit of difficulty concentrating during classes, possessed as I was by thoughts of what announcement Haruhi was going to make. Had she gotten the band back together? Perhaps, but my instincts said no. It was more likely something to do with the purpose of the monster project, or some horrible new thing that I couldn't even imagine. Not that that stopped me from trying to imagine it.

During lunch, while I was sitting eating with Taniguchi and Kunikada, Takuma popped his head into my classroom and gave me a thumbs up.

 _So. I guess Haruhi got the band back together after all. Well done, Haruhi._ _D_ _eep down, I didn't think you could do it even if you tried. I thought your pride would get in the way of reasoning with Takuma._

Takuma still disgusted me, but I managed to give him a weak smile and return the thumbs up. He laughed at me in response, in the manner of a womanizer laughing at a cuckold, and moved on down the hall before I could figure out how to react.

 _Creep._

I reminded myself that the annoyance of having to put up with his disgusting manner would be balanced off by the delight of seeing Miss Asahina and Haruhi in their band costumes. And come to think of it, hadn't Haruhi said she was making one for Nagato as well? I confess I was interested to see that.

Somehow I got through the rest of the classes without my speculations commanding too much of my brain's attention, and made my way to the SOS Brigade clubroom.

I was the last to arrive. As I stepped inside, Haruhi shot to her feet. "Finally! All right, everyone, take your seats! I have an important announcement to make!"

Ms. Asahina and I were the only ones not already sitting. I took a seat at the table, tapping my finger in anticipation of the big reveal.

"Actually, I have two big piece of news to share..." she began, laying a finger to her chin in thought. Then she smiled. "I'll start with the one most relevant to the brigade. The SOS Brigade Band has reunited, and we're starting rehearsals back up tomorrow!"

"That's great," I said, cutting Koizumi off before he could make his usual sycophantic congratulations. "So you persuaded both Nagato and Takuma to come back?" I couldn't help but retain just a tiny amount of doubt. If Haruhi had really pulled this off, she was a more adaptable person than I'd given her credit for.

"Of course I did!" she boasted, fists at her hips like an action figure. "Takuma may be a stubborn mule, but a good leader is well versed in the use of the carrot and the stick! I agreed to use his suggestions in a few of my songs, and said I'd consider his design for his own stage costume. It'll be a while before I get through designing Yuki's and your costumes anyway, so this could save some time. He promised to let me make the final call, and not write me any more obscene lyrics, so I let him back in the band!"

Well, that sounded good. She'd actually made a couple compromises, making it less likely that she and Takuma would just start feuding again. But... "What about Nagato? Did you ask her to rejoin the band?"

Haruhi frowned. "Why would I need to do that? Yuki's a member of the SOS Brigade! That means she does what I say!"

I sighed, wearily resting my face in my palm. "You could at least tell her directly that you want her in the band. Haven't you considered that her feelings might have been hurt when you kicked her out?"

"Fine, fine. Yuki, you're back in the band. Because I want you playing for us."

Unlike the rest of us, Nagato was not seated at the table, but in her usual spot. She did not look up from her book. "Nagato, did you hear Haruhi?" I prompted.

"I did," Nagato said. She looked up at Haruhi. "Thank you."

 _Dammit, I didn't mean for you to thank her... Oh, what's the use?_

"You're welcome," Haruhi said. "Now, if there are no further questions, let's move on to my second piece of news. I have another boyfriend!"

Naturally, the applause which followed was not quite as enthusiastic as it was for last week's boyfriend announcement. I was pleased, though. Even if it was bound to last only a few days, it would be a welcome reprieve for me, and a small step towards some normal social interaction for Haruhi.

"Thank you." She looked directly at me and smiled. "But, I have to give credit where it's due! Kyon told me he wanted the band back together, and that started me thinking about how to make it happen. He also suggested I'd have more excitement dating someone else. I don't know if he's right about that... but well, when Takuma asked me, I thought, why not give it one more shot? So, in a way, we owe both these pieces of exciting news to Kyon too."

Koizumi and Miss Asahina politely clapped, and I blushed with modesty. _Well, grudging it may have been, but it's nice that Haruhi is finally giving me some small recognition for all the things I've done for the brigade. All the... Wait a second._

 _Did she just...?_

"Excuse me," I said to Haruhi. "Did you just mention Takuma when you were talking about getting another boyfriend? I didn't quite catch..."

"Right, Takuma's my new boyfriend."

 _...this is a nightmare, isn't it? Any second, I'm going to wake up in a cold sweat..._

"After I agreed to let him back in the band, he popped the question. He probably got the wrong idea about my reasons for wanting him back, but since you'd just been talking to me about getting another boyfriend, it was a little too serendipitous to say no."

 _Wake up. Wake up. Guys like Takuma do not get girlfriends. Especially not militaristic nutcases like Haruhi Suzumiya. It's too disgusting for reality._

"I gave him one condition, though. I said I'd only be his girlfriend if he helped me practice my kissing technique. You said I needed work on that, right?"

 _Oh, this is getting way beyond disgusting. I'm going to be sick._

Haruhi turned the discussion back to her plans for the band, but I wasn't paying much attention. I was busy trying to blot out the mental image of Haruhi and Takuma in a lip-lock.

I said in the beginning that this past month, I'd been bringing about my own misfortunes through my stupid mistakes. I think that now you can probably guess what the worst of those mistakes was.


	11. Epilogue

\- Epilogue: One Last Kiss -

I'll spare everyone an in-depth account of the week following Haruhi's announcement that Takuma was her new boyfriend. It wasn't all agony, but no one wants to hear about every time Takuma leered or made sexually suggestive remarks at Haruhi during band rehearsal, or Haruhi talking to me in homeroom about the gory details of kissing practice, or Takuma's insufferable gloating while we made our little revisions to the band's songs. Certainly no one wants to talk about it.

I actually can't blame Takuma too much. For the gloating, I mean. Haruhi was a beautiful, unapproachable girl, and he'd gotten her to agree to go out with him the day after she broke up with me. It was only natural that he'd think he'd put one over on me. And since I have no romantic interest in Haruhi, he in fact hadn't. But that didn't stop his taunts from being unbelievable annoying.

There were compensations. When Haruhi arranged for us to perform a free outdoor concert, I certainly didn't feel ready for it. I don't think Miss Asahina did, either. But witnessing Haruhi perform her songs in front of a real audience, instead of just the rest of the band, was really something. She seemed to connect with the crowd in a way that I'd never seen her connect with other human beings. They loved her, and she really seemed determined not to let them down. I felt again that music might be the key to Haruhi becoming a healthy, well-adjusted person who wasn't completely wrapped up in herself. It was funny - so many people lose themselves by becoming rock stars, but Haruhi seemed to find herself that way. A little, anyway. I'm not claiming that Rome was being built in a day here.

And it went okay. I'd be lying if I said I didn't make a few mistakes, or that Miss Asahina wasn't tripped by Haruhi's cord at one point, or that I didn't suspect Haruhi did this on purpose to make Miss Asahina look more adorably hapless. But all in all, I couldn't call it a disaster. There were even moments where I felt like I was having fun.

Most of that week, though, is really too painful to go over. So I'll just skip ahead to Wednesday morning.

I walked into class that day, and saw Haruhi looking vaguely grumpy. I knew from experience that when she was like this she was liable to respond to anything I said by biting my head off, and she wouldn't even feel remorseful about it.

I didn't care to bow in silence and submission before her bad attitudes, though, so I sat down in my desk and casually said, "How did last night's date go?" As if I actually wanted to hear about her and Takuma interacting in a vaguely romantic fashion. The things we do to make conversation with our friends.

"I broke up with him," she said.

"I see," I responded, in a faintly consolatory tone. Inside, of course, I was sighing with relief. In addition to the ongoing grotesqueness of Haruhi and Takuma being girlfriend and boyfriend, I had been thinking of how close Takuma was to beating my record. If Takuma had managed to remain Haruhi's boyfriend for longer than me, I don't think my self-esteem could ever have recovered.

"He tried to touch my boobs," she explained. "I've put up with him as a boyfriend as long as I could, but that was the last straw. I even told him when he first asked me out that he couldn't touch them until at least our fourth date."

"Well, that's a given." _Wait, does that mean when you and I went to the park, I had clearance to touch your..._

"You've got that moronic look again."

I recovered, reminding myself that she said "at least". "I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"It must have been upsetting. Your boyfriend trying to manhandle you."

"Not really. I know that guys will sometimes try that."

 _So much for any chance of this incident making her appreciate that forcing the Computer Society President to do that to Miss Asahina was wrong._ "Um, no they won't," I corrected. "Most guys aren't like Takuma. Hardly _any_ guys are like Takuma."

"And dating him wasn't a total waste of time," she continued, as if I'd said nothing at all. "I've gotten a lot better at kissing."

"That's good." _I wonder what her idea of "better" is. Probably putting even more power into her leap. Or hitting the guy's gag reflex with her tongue._

She furrowed her brow at me. "You don't believe me," she accused.

"Of course I do. Why would you lie about that?"

"I mean, you don't believe that I've really gotten better at kissing."

 _Damn mind reader._

Her glare intensified. "I can prove it to you."

"Oh, of course." _This is going to end with both of us in the principal's office, isn't it?_ "Who do you plan to demonstrate on?"

"You, of course. Just watching me in action wouldn't be very convincing."

"That's true. But I'm your subordinate in the SOS Brigade, and I'm not your boyfriend anymore. Don't you think that would be a little weird?"

"It's just a kiss. People make too big a deal of these things. Now, lean forward."

At first I had thought she was just toying with the idea, and could be talked out of it. But that last command sounded like the barked orders of a general.

I leaned away from her. "Can we at least not do it in front of half the class?"

"Oh, fine." She glanced at the clock. "We've got a little more than five minutes until class starts. That should be plenty."

Before I could deduce what she had in mind, Haruhi grabbed my arm, yanked me out of my chair, and strode out of the classroom with me in tow. In what felt like about ten seconds, she rocketed me upstairs to the door leading to the rooftop terrace, the same place where she'd brought me to discuss forming the SOS Brigade.

"This is private enough, isn't it?" she said.

I squirmed. "Haruhi, do you remember what I said about boyfriend/girlfriend things not being what our relationship is about? This is a boyfriend/girlfriend thing."

"All you need to do is stand still. If you move, you'll mess things up."

She had released my arm. I could run for it. Haruhi would probably immediately tackle me, but it was worth a shot.

However, my curiosity had been piqued. I wasn't sold that her kissing had gotten any better, but I had no trouble believing that it was different. More importantly, I was beginning to think it wouldn't be quite fair for me to not give her a chance to prove herself, after I'd met her first attempt with such a complete lack of enthusiasm. It was obvious from the earnest look in her eyes – and the way she yanked me up here - that however silly it might be, this mattered to her. Everyone deserves a second chance, right?

Yes, the whole thing was weird, but when you're dealing with Haruhi, weird is par for the course. I'd become used to it. And it wasn't like this was going to change anything between us. Falling in love because of a kiss is the stuff of romance films, and idiots who think that all you need to be able to stand being with someone for the rest of your life is for them to be good at making out. It didn't change anything when we kissed as boyfriend and girlfriend, so why would it change anything now, when we're friends at most?

So I stood in place, just as she directed.

Haruhi stared at me like an Olympic runner waiting for the starting pistol to fire. I decided that, if it turned out to be bad again, I'd put on a smile and just say that it was better than the last time. That way her ego would be appeased, and we wouldn't have to go through this a third time.

Then she frowned, as though noticing something wasn't quite right. Guessing what the problem was, I closed my eyes.

No sooner had I done that, though, than I heard her walking away, down the stairs. I opened my eyes. "Hey," I said, walking after her.

"You'll have to take my word for it."

"Why, what's wrong?"

"It would have been weird, okay?"

"Okay."

I sighed to myself as we headed back to class. _"It would have..." Isn't that exactly what I said before you dragged me up there?_

END


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